


The Ship of Dreams

by half_witch



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: 1910s but no homophobia either because I can, Also you bet your sweet ass that car makes an appearance, And yes I did research what animals the Central Park zoo had in 1910, Angst with a Happy Ending, Because they're on a ship what else do you do??, But tributes to the movie, F/M, M/M, Malcolm's still an asshat though, Not a Jack/Rose retelling, Porn with Feelings, go on and laugh :)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-28
Updated: 2019-03-28
Packaged: 2019-12-25 15:21:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18264026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/half_witch/pseuds/half_witch
Summary: Titanic AU: It’s 1912—Simon leaves his past behind him and takes a job with Penny and Micah on The RMS Titanic in order to sail to New York and start anew. Baz Pitch, son of a wealthy business tycoon, is forced to leave his entire life behind to take over the family business in America. Worse, his father has announced an arranged marriage to the daughter of a rival company.However, Simon, their personal steward for the voyage, saves Baz in more ways than one—introducing him to the unexpected freedoms of living Third Class, being his own person, and following his dreams.(And then, y'know, the iceberg. :) )





	1. April 6, 1912, 4 Days before setting sail

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this story in a span of 19 hours with little sleep and hypomania, and I'm too excited not to post it so I apologize if it's shite and full of typos<3 Also I'm not qualified to do Historical AUs, but good lord, do I LOVE to try. :)
> 
> Happy reading!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I lick my lips before I can catch myself while_ he _catches_ me _staring at his mouth. His eyes go wide._

**_April 14, 1912_ **

**Baz**

“Mr. Pitch. We just can’t. Those boats are only meant to hold 65 and we’re already at 69.”

“You can’t fit three more?!” I shout at the officer.

“What about two?” Simon asks emotionlessly. And I feel terrible that he’s been put in this situation to leave Micah behind. “Just two more and then you can lower it.”

A deep frown sets into the officer’s face. He looks like a gambling man with an unlucky hand but gives in anyway. “Alright, two—but quickly, we can’t hold off the crowd much longer.”

Simon turns towards Micah who’s standing by the railing next to broken debris from god knows what else on this collapsing ship. I look away as Simon says goodbye. The guilt eats at me. Penny will be devastated.

Simon comes up in my peripheral and I’m afraid to look at how heartbroken he must be from having to turn his back on his friend, but then he speaks in a tone so calm it sounds wrong—

“I’m sorry, Baz—”

I look up just in time to see something swing at me, and the force of the hit has me falling into darkness.

* * *

 

****

**_April 6, 1912, 4 Days before the Maiden Voyage of the RMS Titanic_ **

**Baz**

It’s 1912.

I’m 21 years old, and my life has already been reduced to a series of numbers and dates.

In March of 1896, Natasha Grimm-Pitch fell ill with a scarlet fever she contracted from her only child… me.

In 1897, she died. Because of me.

In 1888, my aunt Fiona fled to America and left me, her only nephew, and the love of her life, Ebeneza Petty. I still don’t know what trouble she got mixed up in, but my father burns her letters to me before I can read them.

In 1901, Malcolm Grimm-Pitch became the wealthiest and most formidable tycoon in all of England, and 1 year after that, he remarried to Daphne who never conceived, leaving me his only heir to the Grimm empire.

In 1903, my father began grooming me to take part in the family business.

In 1908, I turned 17, assumed my role in official business dealings, and the plans for an “unsinkable ship” were approved.

In 1909, my father’s company turned their resources to the construction of the largest and most impenetrable ship known to the entire world, _The RMS Titanic._

And in this year of 1912, the ship was completed within a span of 26 months.

Upon its completion, it was also announced that I was to forever say goodbye to everything I know and leave to America where I am to manage my father’s foreign trades and business. Suspiciously, he and Daphne are accompanying me in my exile, and I have the worst feeling that something else in my life has been decided for me though I can’t figure out what.

It’s 4 days until the _RMS Titanic_ officially sets sail from Southhampton, but because my father’s company is the controlling trust, we are the first guests to board.

Because in case our elitism and status weren’t obvious to the public, it will be now.

But even in the face of all these miserable numbers and dates, there’s only one thing haunting me right now—

The number of freckles and moles dusting over our steward’s cheeks and peeking out from behind his white collar as he moves my luggage into my quarters.

I push my hair back from my face and give the ends a harsh tug to snap me out of my stupor. Again. I’m going to bald by the end of this trip.

“You pack heavy,” he says good-humoredly.

“I’m not returning.” My tone is pure ice because I don’t like how my heart is racing or how my throat feels like it’s closing-up. I want to gouge out my eyes to stop myself from cataloguing all those godforsaken moles on his golden face and neck.

“Oh, me neither.” He smiles and goes back to shifting around my other bags. “Once we dock in New York, that’s it for me.”

I don’t say anything, just stare at him as he works. He’s gorgeous and smiles like he doesn’t have a care in the world.

“We all got lucky with Ebb—me, Penny, and Micah,” he says, like I should know who these people are. “Good work and a free ticket across the Atlantic on the world’s grandest ship. Can you believe it?”

He wipes his hands on his trousers when he’s done, straightens up, and puts them on his hips like he’s so satisfied in moving my luggage. Or maybe about the voyage. Either way, that sort of joy for life is strange to me.

“My mum was from New York. She came out this way with my father before they had me. But she used to tell me all about the zoo in Central Park and the concerts on Sundays. You’d probably like it. That’s your fiddle case over there, right?”

I raise an eyebrow and say with as little emotion as possible as not to encourage him, “Violin.”

“Same thing, yeah?”

I glare at him because I want him to go away. Because listening to him talk and grin and bubble with excitement over what America has in store for him is lifting my mood and I want to remain sour and petulant about my exile. But the idiot doesn’t take the hint, just keeps stumbling on words, and continuing on.

“Your family called you Basilton, but you’ve got a ‘T’ in the front of your initials.” He points to my luggage.

“Shouldn’t you be wiping something down?” I sneer and leave my suite. I storm down the Promenade Deck of First Class, through the reception room in search for the Smoking Room so I can sulk in my exile and fantasize about a tryst with the forbidden help, Simon Snow.

Ridiculous name. Downright stupid.

I love it.

 

**Simon**

Basilton Grimm-Pitch is everything you’d expect a stuffy, pretentious, wealthy arsehole to be. I have to be at his family’s beck and call for the next 11 days, and it’s only day one, and he’s already made it clear that he thinks I’m dirt.

If I wanted to be treated like this, I would’ve stayed in London with my father. But 11 days, and I’m free.

11 days and I’ll be in New York—the city my mother loved with all her heart and with my real family, Pen, Micah, and Ebb. Even though Ebb has plans to reunite with her previous fiancé—a woman she calls ‘Fi’—she’s invited all of us to stay with them while we find our own places to settle down and call home in the city.

Still, since I’m supposed to spend so much time waiting on the Grimms, I figured I’d get to know their son a little better. ‘Basilton.’ What a stupidly posh name.

“You should’ve seen the look on his face when I called his violin a fiddle,” I rant while Micah peels potatoes and Penny sits on the counter and reads.

“He’s rich, Simon,” Micah says, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose with the back of his wrist. “Snobs don’t like to be associated with us ‘lowly’ working-class people.”

“Fiddle—violin, it’s the same thing!”

“Why don’t you go on about how appalling him running his hand through his hair is again,” Pen says, dripping with sarcasm.

“He does!” I shout out and Micah just laughs. “He’s so vain. It’s like he had to remind me every ten minutes that his hair is—”

“’Silky, wavy, perfect,’ you already said that,” Penny shuts me down and then looks up excitedly from her text. “Did you know there’s a place called the Bijou Theatre right down the street from where Micah’s new job will be?”

I groan. “How am I supposed to follow that arsehole around all week?” I turn to Micah, who’s put down his knife and is reading the text Penny is holding out to him. Both of them ignoring me. “Suppose you wouldn’t want to switch jobs with me, Mic?”

“Ha!” He smirks at me. “You wish. While you’re playing butler for Mr. Grimm-Pitch and his son, I’m going to happily peel potatoes and cut carrots with Ebb for eleven days.”

“Penny?” I beg.

“You know very well you can’t be a steward for women passengers, Si.”

“This is going to be such a long trip.”

“At least you two get tips,” Micah says. “And hey, it’s better than being a coal trimmer. They’re paying them jack all and they’re not allowed to socialize with any of the passengers either.”

I grunt because he’s right and I’m complaining when I could be sweating in the engine room instead of working a cushy job as a  First Class steward.

I just wish Basilton didn’t treat me like I’m less than human.

* * *

 

 

**_Day 1: April 10, 1912, The RMS Titanic sets sail for New York_ **

****

**Baz**

Simon is torturously tempting. But also, a disaster. In the days following our arrival, he’s managed to ruin my shoes in an attempt to shine them, break a bottle of my cologne so now I have a headache from the smell permeating through my room, leave me stranded in the bath because he forgot the most basic of bathroom amenities— _towels_ —

And right now is pushing the air out of my lungs with all of his stocky torso.

“Could you _be_ any clumsier?” I wheeze out, trying to push him off me because my body burns where his touches mine.

“It’s not my fault you move like a ghost,” he says, scrambling up onto all fours. “Wear a bell.”

“You’re not supposed to speak to me like that,” I say, glaring up at him and then I realize he’s hovering above me. I’m staring up at him, his bronze hair blazing from the light behind him and those blue eyes, crystal clear and bright, faceted like diamonds whenever I’ve managed to fire him up.

I think I want to die.

“Oh, because you’re so much better than me?” he spits out. “I may not have a title and my father might not rule the world, but that doesn’t mean I’m not a person.”

My stomach is sinking and I’m falling—for him. This oafish disaster of a person who laughs and keeps Daphne company when my father is busy lecturing me about business, and wishes me good night even though I never say anything back. And puts extra blankets on me in the morning when he comes in with my breakfast and sees me pretending to be asleep, huddled up in the morning chill because it’s always too hot for them at night.

“—and that’s not right,” he finishes something. I don’t know. I’m not listening. I’m staring up at him wide-eyed, very aware that I could just reach up and kiss him if I wanted to.

Would he stop me? My family owns this boat, owns practically everything and everyone on it, but all I want is him and I’m not allowed to because he’s low society and I’m a Grimm-Pitch, and he’s good and kind, and I’m a wretched wreck. An imposter in expensive clothing—

I lick my lips before I can catch myself while he catches _me_ staring at his mouth. His eyes go wide.

That is, until there’s a knock on my door.

 _“Mr. Pitch,”_ Vera, our family servant who’s accompanied us, asks beyond it.

I see the compromising position Simon and I are in and immediately shove him off to the side. He falls with a loud thud next to me and I get up. He scrambles to his feet, too, and I open the door.

I know not to look at Simon as I exit the room.

But I do.

And he looks horrified by something.

 

**Simon**

Fuck. Holy fuck.

Basilton was staring up at me like he was going to kiss me. That’s ridiculous. He hates me. I’m nobody.

The craziest part is that I was kind of waiting for it though. Like I sort of hoped he just would.

But that’s insane. Because he’s so broody, and stuck-up, and I hate him _back_.

But he didn’t look like any of those things a moment ago. He just looked like a man who was under me, long hair fanned out around his head like gorgeous dark halo. I think I wanted to kiss him back. And when he left, he looked so breathless and off-guard—did I do that?

Am I capable of making Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch breathless?

“I don’t know what to do, Pen.”

She stops folding a sheet and gives me a pitying look. “It’s no secret you’ve been sweet on him since he arrived.”

“It was a secret to me!”

“Nevertheless—and you know how much I hate the divides between classes—you’re from two different worlds. He’s going to go on with his life once we dock in America and be smothered by his world’s snobbery and superficiality, and we’re going to go off and actually _live_.”

“So, you’re saying I should just ignore what happened…”

She puts down the neatly folded sheet onto the pile on the bed she’s prepping and frowns at me. “It’s just seven days. Seven days before you and Basilton go separate ways and never see each other again.”

“You’re right.” I sigh. “I should go check in with Ebb and see what she wants me to do. Meet you down below later?”

“You bet. This is our first night out at sea, which means we’re going to drink, dance, and I’m going to slaughter you men at cards.”

I laugh and set off into the hallway, making my way down to the galley.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes? :) Is it shite or what<3


	2. April 11, 1912, 6 days until New York

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I’m calculating numbers and logistics of my death in my head again when I hear footsteps behind me._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How's it going? Hope you're still enjoying this<3

**_Day 2: April 11, 1912, 6 days until New York_ **

****

**Baz**

It’s a long, dull formality to sit with the Chief Officer and my father as they touch base about the voyage.

“I hope the boy has been making your stay easier,” the Chief says, and suddenly I’m interested again.

“Boy?” my father asks because he never pays Simon even a first glance, let alone a second.

Me, on the other hand, I’m heart-achingly aware of every move that idiot makes.

“He means our steward,” I say, trying to sound bored and not at all invested in anything Simon Snow-related.

“Oh, yes, pleasant boy,” my father lies. I can always tell. He makes his face do a slight scrunch as if to convey his conviction on the matter when he has absolutely no clue. “So, you were saying there was a possibility in making the trip in six days instead of seven? Imagine the impression that would make on the New York papers.”

“I apologize,” I say, setting down my cup, “but if you’ll excuse me, I have to—”

My father cuts me off. “Actually, Basilton. There’s an important matter we have yet to discuss, and I’d rather you not run off before we do.”

“I’ll leave you to your conversation, Mr. Grimm. It was a pleasure speaking with you, but I should attend to the crew and make sure everything is moving along.”

The man shakes my father’s hand and I notice that both of their hands are unmarred by weather or work. Not like Simon’s which are rough and dry. These men command men like Simon. They have no idea what it’s like anymore to be on the other side of the class divide. It makes me sick to watch all their pleasantries.

“What is it you wanted to discuss?” I ask, feigning boredom because I’m miserable about being relocated and abandoned in America and I’m not making it a secret, especially to my father. (The only thing keeping me from throwing myself off the side of the ship is that I’ll finally have the freedom to date whoever I want to. Dates to the theatre, concerts, the zoo, all just like Simon said.)

“Try not to be so disagreeable, Basil. Petulance doesn’t look good on you,” he says tiredly, and I roll my eyes, sinking back into my chair now that I’m not on display for the Chief anymore.

“So, what am I to do now? You’re already exiling me to America. What next, murder?”

He gives me a withering stare. I know he’s not amused, but I’m beyond living for his amusement. I’m a function. A cog in his grand machine. I speak, and do, and perform. Everything else comes second.

“I’ve arranged for you to marry the Wellbeloves’ daughter,” he says.

The blood drains from me and I’m nothing but chills and revulsion.

“She’s a lovely girl. Pretty. Even _you’ll_ have to appreciate it,” he says because me being queer isn’t a crime in this world, but in carrying on the Grimm-Pitch line, it is and has been the subject of many arguments between us.

“I’m not—” He interrupts me again because I have no say in my life, ever.

“It’s already been decided. For months now. You’re going to marry her and quash our competition with the Wellbeloves.”

He drops a cube of sugar into his tea and begins to stir, not even giving me the respect of looking at me while he ruins my life.

“This merger will put an end to our rivalry. Think of the profit margin. We’ll be leading the market in trade, manufacturing, _and_ transportation with their end of the bargain held up. The railway productions alone will—”

“I’m not marrying a woman!” I shout. His face doesn’t move a muscle at my outburst. He doesn’t even flinch, teacup steady in his hand as he lifts it to his mouth.

“You will. Three weeks from our arrival, you and Agatha Wellbelove will marry. The merger will be legalized. You will take hold of our American operations in my place, and you will have children to carry on the Grimm line so that one day, they can take yours. Because you’re a Grimm and a Pitch. And because it’s expected of you.”

“…Expected of me.”

My father finally meets my eyes and I expect him to crack. I _want_ to see his face twist into a mess of guilt, shame, and confliction at what he’s just told me and because I’m giving him the most heartbroken expression I can muster.

But he doesn’t. He never flinches and he never regrets. So instead of declaring apologies or having a change of heart like I hope he will at the defeat on my face, he answers, “Yes,” places down his teacup and continues as if he’s congratulating me:

“We have an entire voyage on the most magnificent ship to ever touch the sea,” he says. “There are other ladies and lads your age aboard now. You should go socialize in the Lounge, make some acquaintances. Think of them as future business contacts. Everyone in our class has influence. Perhaps take them to dine at the restaurant. It was built in the Louis XVI style. Very remarkable likeness.”

I close my mouth because I wasn’t aware it was hanging before. He’s so indifferent to the blow he’s just dealt me.

He finally looks at me with something other than business, and levels with me, “You have six days, Basil. Enjoy yourself while you can.”

I stand up and tear away from our table.

Once I’m outside, I see the sun is already set and I skip dinner in favor of laying in the darkness of my room for what feels like hours.

* * *

 

My life is a series of numbers again.

The _Titanic_ has been cutting across the Atlantic since noon yesterday, so that’s 20 hours.

We travel for 6 more days.

Within 1 week, we will dock in New York.

1 hour later, after talking to all the right people, we will make toward the Wellbeloves’ estate.

3 weeks from then I will stand beside a woman and recite my vows.

Within 2 months, my father and Daphne will have returned to my old home in Hampshire and I will be running the company from my new one.

And 2 to 4 children later, I will live the remainder of my days in misery and eventually die at the ripe age of 78. Because it’s all ‘been decided’ for me.

And again, what makes this all the worse is that I’ve known Simon Snow for nearly 130 hours.

And I think I’ve been hopelessly in love with him for 108 of them.

When I’m sure everyone’s either made their way into the Smoking Room, the Lounge, or their own suites after dinner, and that most of the dayshift waitstaff and stewards have been let off duty, I leave my room for the deck with a cigarette in one hand and my room’s decanter in the other. It was full at one point before I started trying to drown myself in it.

I stumble forward across the Bridge Deck at the stern of the ship meant for the steerage. I take deep swallows of the burning liquor like I’m drinking to die and inhale until my lungs are full of burning smoke like I’m smoking to die, too.

It’s too cold and dark for any sane person to be lingering about, but I’m not sane. I’m at my wit’s end, especially when I make for the gap in the railing where a thick rope has been looped around a peg across it.

I unloop it.

Steady my feet near the edge.

And look down.

It doesn’t look as far of a drop with the ship’s light on it. I think maybe if I hit it wrong, it might break my legs which means I won’t be able to keep myself afloat, and I’ll be dragged down under the icy current until I either freeze to death or drown, or both.

I’m calculating numbers and logistics of my death in my head again when I hear footsteps behind me.

“Basilton?”

God no.

“Go away,” I practically whine under my breath. I’m drunk and I think I’m being quiet, but he stops a distance away from me and softens his voice.

“You alright? You weren’t at dinner.”

“So, you’ve decided to stalk me?” It comes out harsh. Because I’m a wreck, and I’m infatuated with this moron, but can’t have him. So, I hate him for that and treat him just as badly.

He doesn’t say anything, but I’m vaguely aware of creaking behind me like he’s trying to be quiet.

“Stay back,” I bark, and the creaking stops.

“You should step back. You’re too close to the edge,” he says with worry in his voice.

I turn to glare at him and end up swaying unsteadily because my head is spinning, it’s dark, and the ship is rocking in its fast pace across the waves. Simon lurches forward, but as soon as he’s within reach, I shove him back with all my strength and he flies sideways, falling onto the deck.

“I said,” I slur, “Stay. Back.”

“If you jump, I’m not jumping after you,” he says with a glare.

“It’s a good thing that this is none of your business then,” I say and cling to the end of the rail where I’ve unhooked the rope.

“Seriously, I’m not going to.”

“I didn’t ask you to, you blubbering idiot.”

“Well, good because I’m not, arsehole.”

“Fine then,” I hiss.

“Fine,” he raises his voice in defiance.

“Good!” I shout and turn back to stare down at the waves running along the side of the ship.

“…Do you think it’d hurt if I jumped?” he asks like the idiot I adore.

It half makes me want to laugh and half makes me want to start sobbing to the dark horizon in front of me because he’s still so good despite how I talk to him.

“I thought you weren’t jumping in after me,” I mutter.

He doesn’t say anything, and I think he might finally leave when he gets up. But he just comes up next to me at the wide break, gripping the other side of the opposite railing so that there’s three feet between us.

“Basilton—”

“I’m not _Basilton_. Or Basil. Or Tyrannus—Baz. My name is Baz,” I spit out angrily. I think, _My name is Baz and I’m a person with dreams and wants and feelings and—_

“Okay. Baz. Say you did jump—” he begins, “…why would you do it?”

I let out a bitter laugh and raise my head back to look at the starlight. “Where to start.”

“Start at the beginning,” he says, voice so inviting I can’t help myself.

“Why would I jump?” I say. “I’d tell you it’s because my life has been one big unsatisfying charade, and that the only thing America has for me is another miserable charade. There’s no Central Park for me, or zoos, or Sunday concerts—”

I turn to look at him and I don’t bother to hide the pain I feel in my chest anymore.

“Just another role for me to fill, this time betrothed to a _woman_ instead of a man.” I look down. Bringing my shaking hand up to take a drag of my cigarette. I try to will the pathetic stinging in my eyes away before I look back at him. I exhale the smoke, and with it confess, “I’d say that I can’t fathom a life like my father’s yet that’s the only option I have… or this.”

“You could always run away.”

I snort.

“No, seriously. You could start up new. Do whatever you like.”

“I can’t just throw everything my father has invested in me away. There’s… expectations of me.” I hate that word now. I’ll forever hear my father’s indifferent voice saying it like that’s reason enough to sentence me to a life of misery.

“You’re about to throw it all away anyway,” he says, “if you jump.”

I stare down grimly at the water.

“Well… Alright,” he says, trying a new approach. “Do what’s expected. Do what your father wants. You could always just have an affair?” he says it like it’s a question, and that gets me to snort. I almost smile. He seems to notice,  smiles at me, and runs with it, “Loads of wealthy people have affairs. Happens all the time. My friends Penny and Micah told me.”

I look back down and mumble, “Are you volunteering?”

“Maybe if you weren’t so mean to me,” he says, and he sounds so blatantly honest it makes me melt.

“I… I could arrange that,” I whisper.

“Well, it’s decided then.”

‘ _It’s all been decided,’_ the voice in my head taunts, and then a dam breaks and I’m all emotion because I’m never going to have this. Not with Simon, not with anyone. I’m going to have a wife and a life I don’t want.

I blame it on the alcohol. On the mortal fear of literally standing at the edge. But my eyes are blurry, my nose is burning, and my chin is wet now. One hand still has a grip on the decanter and is slung around the railing, the other trembles as I hold my cigarette. I lift that hand up to cover my eyes because I’m embarrassed and so full of shame that I can’t do and perform, suck it up and get a grip on my reality.

I hear him shuffle closer. He pulls at my hand until it lowers, frowns at me, and plucks the cigarette away, tossing it off the deck into the ocean I want to drown in, too.

My breath hitches when he grabs on to my fingers. Just holds me, trying to hide his concern with another of his smiles. He reaches down for the rope hanging off the side and leans around to hook it back across the gap in front of me.

“That water’s too cold to go swimming,” he says, and tugs at me to step back.

I do.

I have the dark night sky and waters behind me as he pulls me back towards the lighting of the ship, and I follow him like a desperate moth to a flame until I’m safely away from the edge.

He sits me down on one of the benches in the shadows and takes the decanter from my hand, setting that down on the wooden boards beneath us. With my newly freed hand, I smooth back my hair and tug at the ends as hard as I can.

“So vain, even after flirting with death,” he says with a laugh.

“What?”

“You. Always smoothing your hair back. Bet you like how it looks when it falls back around your face again.”

I frown. “I pull at it when I can’t take what’s around me anymore,” I say. “Not because it looks good.”

“Really?”

“I just pull until it hurts. Because sometimes that’s all I’m allowed to do with my father in charge of me.”

He frowns back. “But you do it all the time, you’ve been doing that to yourself around me this whole stay.”

I stare at the planks in front of us and answer, “It feels better than whatever’s inside me. That everything’s wrong.”

“But you do it when it’s just the two of us, too. Why do I make everything feel wrong?”

It’s quiet. I don’t say anything back because I’m good at that most of the time. I’ve been groomed for that, and I’ve over-shared as it is. The water laps at the ship and wind rustles through our clothes. It’s cold, and that water would’ve been colder. Like pins and needles sinking into my flesh and down to every nerve ending until it’s black and frostbitten with death.

The _RMS_ _Titanic_ is supposed to be the most luxurious ship to ever sail—people should want for nothing within their own class. But it’s cold. Everything is uninviting and cold here for me.

Except the warm hand on the side of my face, followed by a pair of lips barely pressing against mine.

I’m far gone, but the shock of it jolts sobriety through me, and my eyes immediately close. I lean against his mouth because if he’s going to make a mess of the way things are supposed to be, I’m going to make it messier. I’m going revel in the disaster until the consequences come. My mouth falls open against his when his tongue traces my bottom lip, and his fingers wind up my neck into my hair, gripping onto it to pull me closer.

He doesn’t make it hurt.

* * *

 

 

**Simon**

I wanted to bring Baz down to the party because I think it’d be good for him to be around some working-folks letting off steam and having a ball in the lower decks, but I can tell he’s still shaken from earlier even after we’ve stopped kissing and we end up huddled together on one of the benches. I’ve draped my white uniform jacket over us because he left his room without his.

It makes me sick that he was so far off in his head that he didn’t think he’d need it—or anything else anymore, for that matter.

My lips feel swollen and I want to keep kissing him because kissing Baz feels good. There’s something right about it. Like I’ve been made to do it and never stop. But I also know that in the headspace he’s in right now, it’s better if I just hold him. He needs that more than anything else, so I give it to him.

I just enjoy this because there’s a good chance he’ll wake up tomorrow and pretend none of this ever happened so that he can resume his role as his father’s son.

I run my hand through his hair again, trailing my fingers against his scalp. He hums, which is the only way I know he’s still awake.

“We should go inside,” I whisper into the quiet. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even acknowledge what I’ve said. So, I pull him upright and when my eyes meet his hooded gaze, I see a haze from the alcohol clouding them. “Come on,” I say. “I’ll help you to bed.”

It’s tricky getting back to his suite because I’m trying to take all the pathways that I know the other stewards won’t be using in trying to clean up after the day. He’s still drunk and leaning on me for most of his support, and when Vera, going to her own room, sees us coming up the hall, I flash her a big  smile.

“He celebrated his engagement a little too hard.”

“Oh,” she lets out with wide-eyes which means the news must be new to her, too. “Congratulations, Basilton.”

He dips his head into my neck in a way I hope looks less like his mouth searching for my skin and more like a tired gesture.

“I’ll just get him to bed then,” I say, walking us passed her. “Goodnight, Vera!”

Once we’re in Baz’s room, I deposit him on his bed and start unlacing his shoes. He mumbles something incoherent, so after I’ve dropped them to the floor, I go to sit beside him on the edge of his bed and ask what he said.

“Stay,” he says, a slight beg to it.

“Only if you get out of your waistcoat. I’ll get you some pyjamas.”

Like he’s determined to make sure I keep my word, he struggles to push himself upright and starts undoing the buttons on his vest while I cross to his dresser and pull out something comfortable for him. It takes some maneuvering and prompting, but eventually I get him undressed then spend the remainder of the time biting my lip asking myself _why_ I’m putting clothes back on him when all I want to do is take them off.

He falls back, pyjamas on, and yanks me down with him.

“Hold on, I’ll be right back—”

“No,” he says like a spoiled child.

“Real fast, I promise,” I say and give him a quick kiss on the cheek. That satisfies him.

I run to the door and lock it because the wrong person coming through that door would be a whole mess of problems the two of us don’t need. I turn down the lamps and crawl back into his bed, stripped down to my undershirt and pants, and pull the blankets up and over us.

He wraps his arm around my waist and buries his face into my neck again.

“What time is it?” he mumbles.

“Just about to be midnight,” I say. “Why?”

He’s either fallen asleep or thinking, but then he says, “Numbers…112 hours…”

“What’s that mean?” He mumbles something else, but I only catch the tail end, _‘…with you.’_ I’ll ask him when he’s sober and awake tomorrow. That is, if he’s still speaking to me like this tomorrow. “Goodnight, Baz.”

Like usual, he doesn’t say anything. This time, however, he grips onto my waist tighter.


	3. April 12, 1912, 5 Days until New York

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _He’s poor. He has nothing. But because of that, he has everything, and so much more than the people voyaging in First Class ever will._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *cough* smut *cough*

**_Day 3: April 12, 1912, 5 Days until New York_ **

 

**Simon**

It’s five-thirty when I wake up. I’ve always been an early riser and considering I’m tangled up in the sheets of Malcolm Grimm-Pitch’s only heir who's recently betrothed, getting up out of Baz’s bed before the rest of the guests are awake is probably best.

I look down at him and he looks so different. I realize that this is what Baz looks like when he’s truly sleeping and not just faking it like he apparently has since he’s been staying on the ship, when I come in his room in the mornings. His face is soft with a deep, sleepy pout. But his eyes aren’t crinkled from trying not to cry, and his eyebrows aren’t pinched from the shame of not being able to stop.

I kiss his cheek.

And then steal one to his lips just in case I never get one again and get up out of bed to put on my uniform.

Before I leave, I drape the two extra blankets I always keep folded up on the chaise over him then go back to the door and listen for any footsteps in the hallway.

When I think it’s safe, I sneak out and pull his door closed with a silent click as quickly as I can then speed off down the hall and around the corner.

Micah likes to sleep in late, but he’s a light sleeper and will wake up to the slightest bump or squeak in the night.

When the floorboards creak as I fall into my bunk, he shuffles under his blankets and squints over at me.

“Where have you been?” he asks me sleepily. We don’t have to worry about the two bunks above ours because one of them is vacant, and the other belongs to a man who made it clear his intention throughout this voyage is to never sleep a single night in his own bed—in other words, rather in the beds of other maids on the ship.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” I say to him.

“It was that giggly linen stewardess.” He closes his eyes again. “Wasn’t it? I knew you were on the make with her after the party.”

I roll my eyes then let out a dumb, “Uh… Not quite…?”

“If you weren’t on the make with her,” he opens up one eye at me and asks, “who then?”

I flop onto my back and cover my face with my hands.

Micah shuffles even more, but this time his voice is so much more awake and closer like he’s leaning over the gap between our bunks. “Who was it, Simon?”

“Baz…”

“Who’s Baz?”

I spread the fingers of my right hand so that I can peek out at Micah’s face while he puts it all together.

“Wait—whoa, whoa, hold on, you mean _Basilton_?”

I nod, still hiding behind my hands.

“As in _Basilton Grimm-Pitch_. The arsehole who’s been running you through the ringer?”

“We sort of had a moment.” I exclude the bit about him trying to jump off the side of the ship because that feels private. And if Baz ignores me today, I’d rather not spread that around. Keep it just a secret-shared moment that neither of us acknowledges. “We didn’t do anything. Just sort of cuddled.”

“ _Basilton Grimm-Pitch_ is a _cuddler?_ ”

“Stop saying his full name like that. He likes ‘Baz.’”

“This is amazing, Simon. Moving on up in the world. Soon, you’ll be consorting with the lords and ladies of Old Money and waiting for Penny and me to refill your drinks and light your cigars.”

“Shut up.” I groan. “I know it’s stupid. I think it was just a one-time thing. He was drunk.”

“You know what this means, right?” he asks me.

“What?”

“I lost Penny’s bet. She said it would happen, and I told her, _‘No way. Simon has more sense than that,’_ and she said, _‘Then you don’t know Simon.’_ ”

“You’re a terrible friend.”

“She’s the one who assumed you didn’t have sense.” He swings his legs over the side of his mattress to face me. “Do you think he’s going to remember anything later?”

I frown up at the bunk above me. “I don’t know.”

A few hours later, I stop by the galley then go to the First Class suites where I slip in and out of Baz’s room quickly, just to drop off his tray of breakfast at his table.

When I return around noon to collect it, he’s still here. But now I find him up out of bed looking crestfallen and dazed, poking at a bowl of plain oats that I thought could help soak up some of the lingering alcohol sitting in his stomach. He freezes when I enter and stares at me wide-eyed.

I pause at the door, unsure whether he wants me to stay or get the hell out, but after a few moments of the heaviest tension I’ve ever felt, his eyes drop to my lips again and he bites his. That’s all I need.

I kick the door shut with my foot and he launches from his chair, wrapping his arms around my neck and smashing his mouth against mine. I back us up until my back hits and I’m trapped between him and the door. Without stopping his lips’ assault, I fumble with the lock above the knob then hastily move my hand to run under his shirt against his smooth stomach.

My thumb rubs circles across his skin which seems to rile him up even more because he’s biting at my bottom lip and sucking on it until it aches and even after I’ve turned to a whimpering mess.

He pulls his hands down from my hair to yank on my bowtie and then makes fast work popping the four buttons of my white vest loose before frantically tugging my tucked shirt out.

It’s only hanging open when his hands start roaming my chest, trying to touch all of me at once. My skin burns underneath his hands, fingers clawing at me like he’s trying to mark me as his. I don’t mind being claimed by him, but I’m tired of his shirt separating us, so I pull at the hem of his pyjamas until it’s up over his head and it’s just his naked chest against mine. He’s mouthing at my neck, sucking bruises above the collar of my uniform that I choose to worry about later, and I drag my hand along his side, down his stomach, and slowly dip it underneath the band of his trousers.

I follow his body down and when he fills my palm, I wrap my fingers around him and squeeze. He hisses in a breath and pants right into my ear, and I use the break in his kissing to flip us around so that I’m the one caging him in against the door. I move my hand in slow strokes, sliding and purposely dragging my thumb over the tip of him, while experimenting with the different sounds I can pull from his parted lips. My body shivers when I’ve got him making a particularly high keening, but I hear something that’s not him. I freeze, and clamp my other hand over his mouth. A second later there’s a knock on the door.

His eyes go wide at me.

 _“Mr. Pitch?”_ Vera calls from the other side.

He looks at me worried that she heard us, or rather him.

Both of us are afraid to move, so we just stare at each other in panic, my hand still covering his mouth.

 _“Mr. Pitch—Basilton?”_ she calls again.

I release my hand from his lips. He swallows and answers, “Yes, Vera?” as normally as he can.

_“Will you be joining your family for the luncheon? Your father’s ordered potted shrimp and soused herrings, but I can order you Egg À l’Argenteuil if you like.”_

“I’m—uh—feeling a bit under the weather. From my celebrations last night.”

_“I’ll see to it that Mr. and Mrs. Grimm are informed.”_

Before she can walk off, Baz shouts, “Vera! Let them know I’ve instructed our steward to assist me today until I am better.”

 _“Yes, of course, Basilton. Get some rest.”_ Her footsteps retreat and we stay there pressed against the door until there’s nothing but silence.

“That was close,” I say and bump my nose affectionately against his. “You’re a screamer.”

“Shut up,” he says. “You’re not _that_ good.”

“You’re still hard,” I challenge, giving him a good squeeze and a firm tug.

His eyes flutter shut, and he says breathlessly, “Well, you still have your hand wrapped around my cock.”

I bring my mouth close to his so that he can feel the heat of my breath against his tongue. “Should I remove it?”

“Don’t you bloody dare, Simon Snow,” he hisses, and we’re back to mashing our lips together, clashing teeth, sliding tongues, and stumbling towards the bed.

I push him down, pulling his trousers off his hips, and he undoes the buttons of mine. Soon it’s just me and him, nothing between us—no pretenses, class divides, or clothes. I press into him, hips rolling and pushing against each other until Baz has his hands in my hair again and I’m trying to pull more keens and whines from his throat. And when we’re both winding, something deep in our bellies coiling and making our abdomens tight and toes curl, he bucks his hips up into mine at a frantic pace that I try to match.

He thrusts against me hard, the friction driving him on, and I push my mouth against his to swallow his cries so no one catches us. He thrusts up insistently—impatiently and so close, whining and panting against my mouth until he throws his head back and cries out, going rigid and stiff; nails digging into my shoulders and dragging lines down my back as I move again, once—twice, before I clamp my teeth down on my lip and try to bite back my groan. (It doesn’t work.) My spent body shudders forward in waves then slows to a grind until I collapse against him.

Chests heaving and sweat-slicked, he pulls my head up from his collar not to kiss me, but to just nuzzle his nose against mine in a way that seems almost better than a kiss.

We lay there panting, so close that the heat of our breaths dance over each other. When I come back down from my high, I murmur, “So… better than Egg À l’Argenteuil?”

“Much better than scrambled eggs and asparagus, yes.” He laughs lightly.

“What about grilled mutton?” I tease.

“Yes, Simon,” he drawls. “It was better than all the wretched food they serve on this ship.”

I hum. “I don’t know. I rather like the mutton chops. It’s hard to decide.”

He playfully whacks me then rests back and presses his nose to mine again.

After a while, he moves his hand over my chest and picks up the flat oval locket between us. I’ve known it all my life. It has a floral filigree that rises up out of the metal and inside is a picture of my mum.

“What’s this?” he asks.

“It belonged to my mum. My father gave it to me after she died.”

“How did she die?”

“Got sick. She held on as long as she could. She’s the reason I chose the last name ‘Snow.’”

He stares up at me, playfulness gone. “What was it before?”

“Doesn’t matter now,” I say. “I’m leaving that and my father behind me. It’s nice though, to be my own person. You can just choose a different name, and that’s it. No more history.”

“Or legacy,” he says wistfully, and I know he’s thinking of his family. He seems to shake them from his head, and just says, “Simon _Snow_.”

“She loved it. Said it was her favorite thing about New York in the winter.”

He traces his thumb over the locket, and I tell him stories about my mum.

Eventually, he starts to tell me about his. That Daphne is his step-mother. And when he tells me he thinks he’s to blame for his mum’s death, I kiss him, and tell him that for a smart person, he’s incredibly thick.

* * *

 

**Baz**

 “—imagine a trading post in…” My father trails off. “Are you paying attention, Basilton?”

“Not particularly, no,” I say dismissively, still replaying the events from earlier. Simon moving on top of me, him growling, _‘Fuck, Baz,’_ and rubbing himself onto me harder. It sends a charge of electricity up my spine. I shift a little with the shudder.

My father sighs. “I suppose you want to be off then.”

“Six days,” I remind him bitterly. “Isn’t that what you said? Six days of freedom before I’m sentenced to a life with a Wellbelove.”

“You forget, Basil,” he says with infuriatingly calmness, “you mean _five_ now.”

My blood boils at his taunting, and I all but knock over the teapot in my temper when I stand and make leave.

But I don’t. Because Grimms and Pitches don’t act in that sort of way. I fix a scowl onto my face though instead and leave the Smoking Room. Daphne has been spending her time with the other wives and ladies in the Writing Room meant for the First Class women passengers to socialize. Which has left my father with little more than to reinforce connections with the other guests and force me to sit through it all.

I can tell he knows I’m up to trouble, but he’s allowing me to treat the _Titanic_ like it’s my last hurrah—which, I guess, it is…

I’m so angry, I make for the lower decks in search for the galley where Simon goes in the time he’s not waiting on us. Though, with everyone vying for my father’s attention on business relations or his favor in their mutual interests, he’s hardly noticed that Simon’s not around and hasn’t questioned why Simon’s friend Penelope is turning down his and Daphne’s bed at night instead.

After intimidating a few of the waitstaff with demands for directions to the galley, I enter and find Simon and a woman laughing while she kneads dough. And I don’t care who sees, I go up to him, grab him by the wrist, and give him an urgent kiss, interrupting his conversation. He’s lost in it for a moment until he gathers himself and pulls away, staring up at me with worry on his face.

“Is everything alrigh—”

“No,” I bark out and try to attack his mouth again.

“Fi used to snog me when she was upset, too,” the woman says, glancing up at us with a smile and continuing to knead with her flour-covered hands. “Must be a Pitch thing.”

I stare at her wide-eyed because there’s only one ‘Fi’ and one other Pitch I know of. I haven’t heard anyone talk about Fiona in years, not since I gave up pleading with my father to read her letters. Not since the letters stopped coming.

“I’m Ebb, and I haven’t seen ya since you were a young thing,” she says. “Used to cry for your mama and Fi would whisk ya away from the city to my family’s home. Do you remember that?”

Suddenly, I see the woman in front of me as a baby-faced girl with golden hair in humble clothing covered in grass and garden dirt. Now, she’s a mature woman, donning a cook’s uniform with darkened blond strands peeking out from her cap.

“Ebeneza…” I say with realization.

“Been a long time, Baz—” she calls me the nickname Fi gave me before she left us both behind. “But a handsome young man you turned out to be. No wonder Simon wouldn’t stop talking about ya when ya first arrived.”

Simon goes pink under his tawny cheeks and his ears redden at the tops. I smirk.

“Fi misses ya, y’know,” she says, pulling me back down to earth.

“Why’d she do it?” I ask, and I know she understands what I mean.

“She didn’t have much after Tasha died. My brother Nicky roped her into their politics. Sometimes it’d get out of hand. One day, the coppers were sent to apprehend them. It was either submit or run. Not much of a choice, innit?”

Her eyes start watering and I look at Simon because I don’t know what to do. He just shakes his head, not worried a bit, and hands her his handkerchief.

“Times are a-changing, Baz. A revolution’s coming.” She dabs at her eyes and sniffles a little then tries to smile. “But we won’t be mixed up in it anymore. Not in New York. Fresh start. You should join us. Simon says you’re engaged.”

“Yes. To Agatha Wellbelove,” I try to say without sounding curt.

“He also says ya don’t want to marry.”

I clench my jaw and Simon hops down from the counter and entwines his fingers in mine.

“You have family in New York,” she says. “There’s hardly a letter where Fi doesn’t mention ya still.”

“My father never let me see her letters.”

“Ah, she knows. She’s always been clever. She’s a Pitch, just like you. Like Tasha was—”

“Ebb!” a panicked shout comes from the other side of the kitchen. “Help! The Chicken Lyonnaise burnt!”

“You two go have fun,” she tells us and dusts the flour off her hands on her apron.

We’re out in the hall when I stop Simon. “My aunt didn’t forget about me.”

Simon gives me a sad smile and says, “Who could?” He pulls at me to follow him. “Let me go change so it’s not so obvious you’re snogging the steward.” And I follow him in his white shirt and jacket, black trousers and bowtie, down floors I’m not supposed to venture through because I’m the highest rank of First Class and he’s the help. When we arrive at his room, I see that his friend Penny is sitting with the person I assume is Micah. The room is cramped, four bunk beds made of dark wood taking up most of the space.

“Guys,” Simon says, clenching onto my hand tighter. “This is Baz—Baz, Micah and Penny.”

“Good afternoon, _Mr. Pitch_ ,” Micah greets me stuffily. I think I’ve offended him by just being me, but then his face breaks into a smile. “I’m joking. You’re coming to our party tonight, right?”

“Can you fiddle? We only have a sorry excuse for a musician. It’d make you quite popular,” Penny says.

They’re completely unaffected by me or my clothes, my status that ranks so high above them that my society barely sees them as anything but smudges in the lenses of their privilege. But here they are, acting so comfortable around me like I’m one of them. I wonder if Simon’s told them about last night and how I was debating taking a long, permanent swim.

I don’t think I would’ve done it.

Or maybe I would have if it weren’t for Simon.

Maybe I will once my six— _five_ days are up.

Maybe I’ll run away to Fiona’s and persuade Simon to still want me when I’m nothing.

Or, maybe I’ll marry Wellbelove, have children, and once my duty is complete, off myself then.

“Baz?” Simon snaps me out of my spiral.

“Hm?”

Penny and Micah are giving me worried glances and excuse themselves so Simon can get changed.

Simon leans up and presses a kiss to my head, like he’s trying to fix it. “I asked what color you want to wear.”

“What?”

“Well, even in my clothes, it’s still going to look like I’m trying to pickpocket you,” he says and pulls out his trunk. He gives me a pile of clothes to wear and after I don’t move, he nods. “Go on, put them on then.”

I slip out of my jacket, undo the buttons on my waistcoat and dress shirt then shrug on the faded navy shirt he’s given me. The material is rough, like I can feel every course, thick thread weaved through it. I pull on his trousers and they’re three inches too short.

“We have a problem here,” I say, and he takes one look at me and laughs. I laugh, too, and take them off.

“You can wear a pair of Micah’s. He won’t mind, but you’re going to have to wear a belt because you’re skin and bone compared to him.”

“Belts are informal,” I say.

“You’re one of us today,” he says. “No one cares about stuff like that when you could be running around, alive and well on the bloody magnificent _Titanic_.”

“It’s just a ship,” I say because it is. It’s a means of travel for my doomed life.

“For some of us, it’s the most luxurious experience we’ll ever have. I mean, we’re _sailing_ to an entirely different continent on a floating city.”

He grins and keeps rambling in his excitement and I don’t have the heart to stop it.

“The crystal candle fixtures everywhere—the exotic woods from all over the world. Penny says she’s already seen Walnut, Sycamore, Satinwood, _and_ Oak in her rounds, and she’s still counting. Micah told me about the ceilings in the Turkish Bath—all the colors in the Arabic tiles on the walls and floors just... Baz, it’s amazing. The imported carpets everyone just steps on are worth more than anything I could ever own. The silk curtains. The carvings in the paneling. That Grand Staircase that I could never step onto unless I was serving something. I’ve never seen this all in my life.”

I look at him guiltily because it _is_ beautiful. Immaculate. Magnificent. But all I see is the price on my soul that comes with being allowed to walk down that staircase or dine without thought of extra expense in the À la Carte Restaurant adjoining it.

He’s poor. He has nothing. But because of that, he has everything, and so much more than the people voyaging in First Class ever will.

He’s still smiling in his optimism when he hands me a pair of brown slacks from Micah and a belt from his luggage. I finish the look with a darker brown cap. When my shirt is tucked in, I get a glimpse of myself in the small mirror on the wall by the door. I look ordinary, but not bad. My hair is too long, but I have a vision of myself in this kind of life with Simon, Micah, and Penny.

When I look back at Simon, he’s pulling brown suspenders over his broad shoulders and I realize this is the first time I’ve seen him without his stewards’ uniform on—besides him completely naked in my bed, that is.

He looks charming in his white cotton shirt. Casual like the working men and labourers that I’d see when my father brought me along to see the _Titanic’s_ progress during building. I just want to undo those buttons, push him back, and mount him on his bunk, make him growl my name again. But he grabs my hand and leads me out the door before I can give in to my baser instincts.

Now that I’m in plain clothes, no one looks at me, and after running down a few hallways with Simon, it’s a thrilling sense of freedom that I’ve never experienced in my life.

I smile and we head out to the Boat Deck where he pulls me into a game of quoits. I’ve been wanting to play, but my father insists that unless it’s over a productive chat in disguise, there’s no point. But I play now and realize I’m actually quite good at this game.

A couple other young men our age ask to join, and they all start talking about their big dreams and expectations for New York. I stay quiet and when I’m asked what I’m planning on doing once I get there, Simon answers for me.

“He’s a violinist. I’ve heard him practice. He’s brilliant with a bow.”

“I hear they have orchestras,” one says excitedly. “My sister is a mezzo-soprano at the Century Opera House. They’re always looking for musicians. It’s livable pay to do what you love, at any rate.”

 _What I love_.

The thought strikes me and I’m smiling, grinning like a madman which goes unnoticed because the other stranger with us makes a wisecrack about getting paid for what he loves—sleeping around with women twice his rank.

We all walk together to the Bridge Deck where the steerage, the Third Class passengers are allowed to congregate, and Simon and I are accepted amongst them without question. Someone passes a flask to me in exchange for giving them a cigarette. He nods at me in appreciation and is the one to announce a party in the General Room of lower decks which I’m guessing is like the Third Class Lounge.

When we descend below and arrive at the large room, Penny has her hands up in the air because she’s just won a round in cards and makes a big gesture to sweep her earnings from the middle of the table towards her. Micah smiles in good sportsmanship, leans over, kisses her cheek, and says, “Good play, babes.”

There is, indeed, a sorry musician who’s drunkenly playing a violin in the corner. The screeches between notes is enough to make my trained ear ache, but no one else seems to mind. When Micah spots me, he shouts to the room that their musician is finally here, and I try to protest, but Simon shoves me forward and the drunken violinist hands me his fiddle.

“I’m not a fiddler. I won it off a man in a saloon hours before the _Titanic_ started boarding.” He laughs and retreats to the corner to cozy up to a red-haired man.

I normally play the classics, and I enjoy them. It’s also expected of me. But I enjoy fiddling just as much even if my father doesn’t deem it appropriate. So, like in my secret sessions, I start bouncing the bow across the strings in short, high bursts and within seconds, a girl grabs herself a partner and the two start twirling and hopping to my strokes.

Everyone starts stomping and clapping along with the music as more people join in the dance, and I do my best to keep up a tune that keeps everyone overjoyed and lively. When I end with a long, drawn note, everyone claps.

Someone asks for my name.

“Baz,” I answer.

They ask, “Baz what?”

“Just Baz. I’m nobody.”

The woman laughs and says, “Not with a fiddle in your hand, Baz.”

I smile because I’m Just-Baz and Just-Baz doesn’t have to keep a schooled expression or say all the right things. Here, I’m a musician trying to make my way through the world doing something I love for people who appreciate it.

I think I love it.

Simon presses himself into my side and searches with his mouth for that spot on my neck that makes me shiver, giggling when I curl into it.

I think I love him, too.

 


	4. April 13, 1912, 4 days left to New York

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“To hell with it. Let it tank. Let him find someone else. I’ll be a struggling musician and we can have dinner with Ebb and Fiona, Penny and Micah every night. And we can see lions at the zoo and ice skate at the park during winters. I’ll join the ensemble on Sundays for your concerts. And we’ll… be free.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *cough* more porn but in a car *cough*

**_Day 4: April 13, 1912, 4 days left to New York_ **

**Baz**

I’m sitting with Daphne and my father as Simon lays a plate of baked apples, which Ebb sweetened even more with added sugar because he told her about my enormous sweet tooth.

“I don’t know if she’s supposed to, but Ebb makes sure all of us eat as well as First Class when we can, so I’ve tried about everything on the menu,” he told me last night when we escaped the party to go back to the Board Deck. Because nobody would bother with two seemingly nobodies. Just two steerage passengers enjoying the only deck they’re allowed on. “Don’t care for the lamb collops or the boiled hominy though.”

He places a basket of Sultana Scones beside me because he says it’s his favorite food on the entire ship.

I make sure my parents aren’t looking and shoot him a soft smile and his eyes scandalously roam me up and down in a way that makes me blush before he retreats with a smirk away from our table to give us privacy.

“You didn’t join us for dinner last night,” my father says, cutting into his sirloin.

“And I don’t think I shall for the rest of this trip,” I say flippantly and break a scone in half. The butter coats my fingers. I see why Simon likes these now.

“Basil—”

“A lot of the young men and ladies on the ship have been skipping evenings in the Dining Room in favor of the Cafe Parisien.” Daphne smiles at me. “I hear it’s just like sitting in a Paris. I’m sure you’re all rather taken with it.”

I nod, at least trying to smile for her because I know she’s not an accomplice in my betrothal to Agatha Wellbelove. That’s all my father’s doing.

“Very well,” my father says after he chews and swallows a steak too expensive for any of the people from the steerage party last night.

When I leave, it’s vaguely understood by my parents that Simon is to be gone the rest of the day with someone else in his place. I think Daphne has noticed, but I know she won’t say a word. My father, if he’s noticed or cares at all, probably thinks it’s a fantastic display of status to have my own steward catering to me in front of all my new “friends” from the Lounge.

Little does he know that after breakfast, I slip into Simon and Micah’s room and change out of my suit and into more clothes Simon digs out for me.

We sneak into and explore every facet of the ship available to Second Class passengers, like the Library—a makeshift Reading and Writing Room for Second Class women. Everything is a warm mahogany and soft lighting that makes us sleepy, so we leave the shelves of books quickly.

We visit the Smoking Room and I realize how much they downsized from First Class’s in designing this one. There are several decks for Second Class passengers which we have access to because despite my clothes disguising me from the other passengers, the stewards and crew all know me from the four days I spent wandering the ship when we pre-boarded. And they recognize Simon as well.

Eventually we throw caution to the wind and explore the First Class amenities on the ship.

I take Simon to see the Turkish Bath that Micah had told him about and we shed our working clothes and waste a good amount of the day in there just talking and soaking, doing laps in the large Swimming bath. Mostly we just end up splashing and wrestling each other in the water.

We receive a few disapproving looks from other gentlemen when we exit in our casual attire as if our presence is a crime there, and I scowl at them. Surprisingly, it has the ability to make men look away as if I were still wearing my suit and my hair slicked back instead of hidden underneath a cap.

But despite all these luxuries, the two places on the ship that are most alive are the Board Deck and the Third Class General Room where everyone from the night’s party is congregated again and socializing, just with less alcohol being passed around.

Dinner with the working class is vastly different. Mostly boiled potatoes, rice soup, and biscuits, but Ebb does send generous helpings of sweet plum pudding for everyone.

But instead of rejoining everyone back in the General Room where the shouting, dancing, terrible fiddling, and overall ruckus will echo throughout the halls of the lower levels, Simon nibbles on my ear, and I find a dark corner where we can finally get our hands on each other aside from the lingering touches and stolen kisses when no one was looking to tease us.

 

**Simon**

I’ve got Baz’s belt hanging undone and his shirt untucked, my hand reached up under it and exposing his smooth skin to the shadows of a corner we’ve claimed as our own.

His tongue dances and laves against mine in a dirty kiss that has me pushing our hips together, craving more friction, and cursing the fabric between us. I wish we were back in his bedroom where I could pin him down and play him with my hands as expertly as he moves his fingers over his violin.

Because I’m figuring out all the right strings to pluck with him, to draw the prettiest noises from his parted lips. He’s beautiful and sets fire to me when I look up to see him gasping and biting down on that pouty bottom lip of his when I’ve done something particularly right.

I begin to suggest we go back to his suite. “We should—”

But someone opens a door just a few rooms down from us, and the two of us tear out of the hallway, giggling and running hand in hand down the long corridors and down flights of stairs until we’re somewhere we haven’t explored before.

His belt still hangs undone from his belt loops when he asks, “What is this?”

“It’s the Cargo Hold. One of them at least,” I answer. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

Baz looks all around at the luggage and crates then stops and coos out something like _‘Sweetheart’_ and drags me to the most glorious automobile I’ve ever seen.

“I take it you know this beauty,” I say, staring at its candy red body and brilliantly white tires. I touch the spare mounted on the side of the car at my waist level and trail my hand down the smooth wooden spokes.

“This is my car.”

“ _Your_ car?” I ask, but I shouldn’t be surprised.

“A Renault Coupe de Ville.”

“I can’t believe this even exists,” I say in awe. “I’ve never seen a car like this.”

“That’s what my father’s American associate said.” Baz sighs. “Which is why it’s being given away like everything else in my life.”

“But—but—” I’m irrationally angry at this, even though Baz is already losing his life to matrimony, something instinctual in me is appalled that this beautiful machine is being taken from him, too. “This is _your_ car!”

“But it’s a good bargaining chip when you’re trying to get into the transportation industry,” he says wistfully, running his hand alongside the black, leather upholstery. “That’s what my father says, anyway. Everything is a bargaining tool for him. Including me.”

He clears his throat and smiles sadly at me before offering:

“Want to sit behind the wheel? You’ll never forget the feel.”

I do. I want to sit there and grip the polished wood, back firmly seated against the black polished rivets of the leather paneling and see myself reflected back in the glinting gold of the trim encasing the mirrors and the flawless glass of the windshield.

But I pull him around the front of the car, passed the headlights also held in gold, and open the only door to the front bench. I nudge at him to get in first and he does so, hesitantly, and when I’m sidled up next to him, I pull the door shut, and see him, hands gripped on the steering wheel and looking at all the surrounding fixtures.

“I’m going to miss this car…” he says and reaches up to adjust the mirror above him. “I think I’m going to miss a lot of things.”

“Steal it back,” I say without missing a beat.

He looks at me like I’m an idiot and says, “What.”

“You heard me. Have an affair and steal the car.”

“Are you going to be my accomplice _and_ illicit lover, now?” He smirks.

“Sure, why not?” I ask. “You’re not nearly as mean to me anymore as you were before. A deal’s a deal.”

He lets go of the wheel and puts his hands on either side of my face instead.

“Okay,” Baz says. “Let’s sneak you into my bed every night and steal this car after we dock. And when they catch on, we’ll drive away in it and never look back.” There’s both playfulness and longing in his voice. And though I can hear he doesn’t mean a word of it, I play along with the dream, too.

“And your dad’s company? Your inheritance?

“To hell with it. Let it tank. Let him find someone else. I’ll be a struggling musician and we can have dinner with Ebb and Fiona, Penny and Micah every night. And we can see lions at the zoo and ice skate at the park during winters. I’ll join the ensemble on Sundays for your concerts. And we’ll… be free.”

I try to smile, but he looks so sad. He closes his eyes like when you wake up from a beautiful dream and you’re trying to hold onto it before reality snatches it all away from you. Because when you open your eyes, it’ll all just be a memory you’ll forget, but a feeling that haunts you the rest of your day.

It’ll leave you with the feeling that everything was good and better in that dream, but that this is reality and we have to stomach it no matter what.

But I don’t want that for him. I want him to have freedom. I want to stick it to his father like I did mine, and I want him to run away with me. I don’t think he will though, and I know in 4 days we won’t even have this anymore.

I drop my forehead against his and pull him closer. I kiss him, but this time it’s not frantic and fast like everything we’ve been stealing these last couples of days because I want this moment to last. He presses against me harder, only pulling back for air before pushing his lips and tongue against me again.

It’s slow and languid, less groping and more holding and caressing because we’re trying to fall back into the dream again. When we find ourselves in the back of the dark cab of the car, it’s different—it’s so much better. I mouth at his neck while I undo the buttons of the shirt I’ve given him, I kiss down his chest with each inch of skin revealed to me then nip at the new skin above his trousers while I undo those buttons.

I shove them down just passed his hips, take him, and show how much he means to me, worshipping his body with my tongue as he threads his hand through my hair and pushes up into my mouth.

We’re going to have sex in his car because fuck them all.

It’s one of the last times he’ll ever see it…

And one of the last times he’ll ever see me.

I keep bobbing, pulling up until he almost slips out of my mouth and run my tongue in relentless strokes across the head of his cock. It’s gotten hot and humid inside these walls, and it’s hard to breathe with the heat. It sticks to my skin and makes me hot, but I take him in again, pressing onto him deeper and swallowing; he cries out that high-pitched desperation I love to hear when he’s about to unravel.

I want him to unravel. I want him to fall apart in every sense so that I can pick up the pieces and help him build himself anew.

When he’s pulling at my curls tighter and has lost all ability to say my name, I hollow my cheeks and move faster over him. Then his hips stutter, his hand pushing me down on him until I choke, and he cries out, spilling into my mouth. He loosens his grip and I take a deep breath through my nose and keep laving at him until he pulls me up and pries open my lips with his tongue.

I know he can taste himself on me and the thought makes my own cock strain tight against the fabric of my trousers. I open my mouth wider for him, inviting him in and giving him more of a taste but we’re interrupted by faint shouting in the distance because we’ve left the lights in the Cargo Hold on.

Pulling back from him, I see the windows of the cab are completely steamed up, and Baz’s long, slender handprint is dragged across the window pane above him. He looks wrecked, still heaving, but I quickly pull up his pants while he does up a few buttons of his shirt then fumbles with his belt buckle.

He’s a Grimm-Pitch. We wouldn’t get in trouble, but to save him some scandal and me my job, we creep out of the car, careful not to rock it as we descend from the cab, and duck down, hiding behind the various cargo in the hold and stepping lightly to the open hatch on the opposite side from the voices inspecting the room for thieves.

* * *

 

The adrenaline from our stealth mission is enough to tame the tightness in my pants and the craving to see Baz’s fucked-out face under me again, so we stroll slowly through the ship once we make it to the upper levels.

He’s either too blissed to think of consequences or is too defiant to care because we enter First Class territory, both of us still in my shabby clothes, and walk to his suite. No one is around this time of evening, everyone still socializing after their dinners in the Smoking and Writing rooms, so we don’t run into anyone.

I lock the door like always and he pulls me to his bed, pushes at me to lay down and swings a leg over my hips.

“Your turn,” he says.

“We don’t have to,” I reply, reaching up and running my thumb over his bottom lip, dragging it slightly and the look of it pliable underneath my thumb nearly makes me regret what I’ve just said. But still, I don’t need that. I just want him. “I like this. If you like this, that is.”

“I love this, Simon.”

He dips his head down to kiss me and I think about how I love this, too.

He doesn’t settle for cuddling.

We’re even slower than before now that we’re in the privacy of his room—our lips moving against each other along with the slow rocking of the _Titanic_. There’s no one to interrupt us, or a cramped cab of an automobile while I try to find ways to maneuver my body so I can take him into my mouth. Just his grand room with an even grander bed for us to roll around and worship each other in for hours on end.

His shirt is barely on still, just three buttons done in the middle, so he swiftly pulls it over his head, and I run my hands up along his thighs, his hips, then the naked planes of his stomach.

We haphazardly toss clothing over the side of his bed, and this time when he straddles me, there’s nothing between us. I slick my fingers and he guides me, urging me on when he sinks himself down onto them. I work in slow strokes, pumping and curling deep inside him while I make sure he’s comfortable and enjoying himself as he rocks against my hand. His lips part again in that way I love as he starts breathing harder. But soon he gets impatient and fumbles to remove my hand, aligning himself on me instead.

We moan together.

This is better than anything we’ve done. Because it’s all trust and intimacy, slow sliding and lifting, my hands gripping his waist and his planted and holding himself up on my chest.

I love it—I love him.

I don’t ever want this voyage to end. I want to keep being his because I _am_ his—and the way he’s rolling his hips faster above me, and gazing down at where I disappear into him with every rise and fall of his body, I know he’s mine, too.

“B—Baz…” I groan when he squeezes down on me. He looks back up with a haze in his eyes. “Let me.”

His eyes are hooded, but he hears me over his panting and leans down to crush our lips together. I roll us over, grip onto his leg then pull it up around my waist and thrust hard. He lets out the obscenest moan so I do it again and again. He grabs onto the locket hanging off the chain around my neck and pulls my head down.

I push harder, faster in my desperation, his cock trapped in the friction between our stomachs as I thrust into him over and over.

He whines because he’s close, so close to falling again. I reach down between us and move my hand over him in time with my hips. His eyes find mine and his breath hitches with each thrust then he finally tenses, snaps and cries out; drags his nails into my back, leaving stinging trails over my shoulders. I revel in the pain of it and ride him through his bliss, and when I begin to lose myself, I grip onto his thigh harder and move faster chasing my own.

He relaxes under me, arms holding me close, and I bury my face in his neck, pumping, skin slapping, and fall into clumsy, short bursts. I bite down onto his neck like I know he likes when I finally come, and my own whine is muffled into his skin while my hips stutter forward for one final push.

His nails aren’t scratching at my skin anymore, just trailing back and forth across my back as I grind against him, trying to prolong the feeling making my body hum.

I still, laying limp and heavy on top of him and pull out, but pulling him onto his side along with me.

Our eyes roam each other’s faces as our chests continue to rise and fall in tandem. My eyes settle on his kiss-bitten lips and I kiss them again, keeping them touching when I let off so he can take in a breath.

“I love this, too, Baz.” I say. _I love you_ , I want to say instead.

He snuggles up to me in a way that’s so remarkably gentle and hugs my waist.

I fall asleep and sleep well into the next morning, but neither of us mind, and no one notices my absence because I’m nobody.

And I’ve never been more grateful for that.


	5. April 14, 1912, Sailing in a moonless night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Mate…” one of them says solemnly. “Those bastards locked the gates to the steerage.” He claps a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, man..."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Be prepared to have to go immediately into the final chapter...  
> Because this is a doozy<3

**_Day 5: April 14, 1912, The Titanic sails in a moonless night_ **

**Baz**

There’s a delightful soreness and exhaustion spread over my legs when I move them to trap one of Simon’s own legs in mine.

It’s already ten in the morning, but no one’s breaking down doors or screaming in the hallways after him.

I think he’s got to be known as the laziest employee on the ship amongst the other stewards.

Or maybe the most dedicated according to his superiors since he disappears, supposedly following by my side all day and night out of duty.

Either way, he’s the most gratifying and fun lover I’ve ever had. And I say ‘fun’ because Simon makes me feel like I’m floating, like I’m as free as the wind and there’s nothing—no father, no expectation, no legacy or reputation—to cage me in.

I’ve never laughed as much as I have in these last few days. I don’t think I’ve smiled as much as with him and his people. And I especially don’t think I’ve ever felt less like the person who snapped at him to go wipe something down when he was just trying to be friendly the first day we met.

You can say I’ve gone soft, and I wouldn’t give a damn about it. Because I have.

“You have to let me out of bed,” he says when I throw an arm over him and half lay on top of his chest to keep him from leaving.

“No, I don’t,” I say stubbornly.

“Who’s going to get you breakfast?” He laughs.

“You’ll be my breakfast,” I say without thinking.

He brings a hand up to thread his fingers through my hair and I sigh in contentment.

“There’s a big reception tonight,” I tell him.

“I know. Micah and I are helping Ebb prepare for it.”

“I… want you to go with me.”

He shifts a little and tilts my chin up with his hand, softer now since I’ve been stealing him away from hard labor. “I’m not allowed to do that, Baz.”

“Who says?”

“Everyone? My employer?”

“Ebb would let you,” I counter.

“My _real_ boss. The one that’s in charge of everything.”

“I’ll talk to him then.”

“I’m a worker getting a free ride on this ship, I can’t—”

“I’ll pay for the whole bloody thing,” I say. “I’ll buy your stay here. And buy you out of your contract. I’ll make sure you’re still compensated as you would if you were working, and no one will say anything because I have a disgusting amount of privilege and my father allowed me six days to do whatever the bloody hell I want.”

He looks at me with a stunned expression, and I’m afraid I’ve offended him with my entitlement and wealth, but he just smiles and says, “Putting up with you _is_ an awful lot of work.”

“I’ll see to it you receive a bonus.”

“I’ve never been a kept-man before.” He laughs then adds seriously, “You’re not buying out my contract though. I like working. But getting excused to attend a party wouldn’t be _so_ horrible.”

I grin. “So, you’ll go with me then?”

“Sure. I don’t have a suit for that kind of party though. Micah might have something I can borrow. He’s working in the galley, but he actually comes from a well-off family.”

“His pants are too big for you. You can wear one of mine, I’ll call the tailor in.”

Simon goes quiet and then says once he’s organized his thoughts, “I’ll be able to take the staircase now.” He smiles. “Without my stewards’ uniform.”

“People are going to bow out of our way, not the other way around, Simon.”

I should feel embarrassed or ashamed of my status, but I want him to have this. Because he’s right, for people of his background and class, just _being_ on the _Titanic_ is a luxury. I hope he sees this gesture in his persistently optimistic light, too. Just another adventure and experience to cherish for when…

Well… after we part ways when the _Titanic_ completes its voyage.

* * *

 

I missed breakfast this morning and when my father requests my attendance for the luncheon, I inform Vera to tell him, “I have more enjoyable things to do with my time.”

She frowns at me and says, “I’ll tell him you’re _pre-engaged_ ,” and walks away. I feel bad. Between me and my father arguing, she puts up with a lot of passive-aggressive back-and-forth messages.

Simon and I spend the day as we have with the others—doing whatever the hell we want.

Eventually I do request to speak to his manager and inform him that Simon will be attending the gathering as my guest instead of on-duty. The man looks shocked, but doesn’t dare question me, and to make sure Simon’s in the clear as far as his job is concerned, I make sure to add, “I’m very impressed by his dedication to making my stay adequate. It’s rare to find help that goes up and beyond. I’ll benefit greatly from his company tonight in attending to Grimm & Co.’s relations, don’t you agree?”

He splutters a ‘Yes’ and when he leaves down the hall, Simon ducks back out from around the corner and puts on an obnoxiously posh accent that sounds nothing like me, “ _’It’s rare to find help that goes up and beyond.’”_  He smirks. “Is that before or after I shagged you—”

I shove him and say, “Fuck off,” before grabbing his hand so we can go change into his clothes and rejoin our friends down below.

* * *

 

It’s evening—everyone already having dined, when all the ship’s highest society and families of great social standing all ascend the Grand Staircase to the gathering above. I’m waiting at the second landing of the stairs where it divides; guests in satin heels, furs, and jewels that glisten in the lamplight split off to go up either side.

There’s a masterfully crafted clock behind me, but after waiting so long, I check my watch to confirm the time and drop it back into my pocket.

My father had called me away earlier, so I left Simon to change in my room. But I know he was excited and wanted to show Ebb what he looked like as a ‘fancy gentleman.’

I’m ready to go searching for him when I spot him approaching the staircase, looking nervous. I immediately run down to him and drop my mouth onto his. He pulls back, eyes shifting around us.

“People have seen us kiss before,” I say.

“Not _your_ people.”

“You’re better than all of them put together,” I say. “They’re all painted peacocks and dull company. Come on, let’s go mock them and dance.”

I hold my arm out to him and he hooks his around it then we walk up the staircase, stopping and greeting people along the way just so I can get Simon to linger on his Grand Staircase as long as possible. He’s smiling again when we get to the top and enter through the ornate light-wood doors opening up to a room brimming with people and a quartet playing in the far end.

I purposely avoid Daphne and my father when I can, but eventually they do see us, and I just smile like trouble and nod my head in acknowledgement before kissing Simon on the cheek. My father stares after us as I lead Simon through the throng of dancers and tell him to hold my hand and put the other on my waist.

“I’m not very good at waltzing,” he mumbles, but I instruct him when to take a step back, go forward, shift to the side, and double back.

He steps on my feet several times, but before I can tease him, I hear a voice calling—more like _warning_ —

“Basilton.”

“Not now, father, can’t you see I’m busy with my ‘six days.’” My voice drips with sarcasm and I continue to direct Simon, but he’s not paying attention, instead looking uncomfortably between my father and me. He heavily steps on my foot and I try not to wince.

“I see,” he says like I’ve said something funny then continues, “I believe it’s _three_ now, Basilton,” and walks away; leaving me furious and gripping onto Simon’s shoulder like a vice.

“Hey,” Simon whispers to me, turning my face away from my father’s direction and back at him.

I know I’m still glaring. I’m fucking pissed off that I couldn’t even get the satisfaction of revenge against my father.

“This place is stuffy, and the music is boring,” Simon says. “You remember Jack Dawson? Says he’s rolling cigarettes with stuff more fun than tobacco back in the General Room.”

“He’s impossible,” I spit out about my father. “He’s a tyrant. I can’t believe—”

Simon pushes up on his toes to press his lips onto mine, shutting me up and off, and slowing my head a little.

He pulls back and says, “Enough of that.” Simon smirks at me and asks, “So, you wanna go to a _real_ party—”

The ship tremors, the chandeliers clink and shake above us and the lights flicker briefly. Everyone stops, but as soon as the chandeliers stop swinging, the guests go back to their shallow laughter and conversation.

“What was that?” I ask.

“Must’ve been something with the power,” Simon says, and guides me towards the exit.

We go back to my room to change so I can resume my double life aboard the ship, but Simon and I end up wrapped up in each other again after a few stray kisses release a floodgate that rides itself out by me riding Simon for an hour.

It’s passed midnight when knocking—no _pounding_ on my door wakes us up.

“Basil!” I hear my father shout. “Basil, unlock this door!”

I’m terrified that I’ve pushed my father too far. That he’s going to take Simon away and have him punished for being my date and indulging in my selfish and childish move to flaunt him in front of everyone my father works with.

“What is that?” Simon asks, already buttoning up his shirt as quickly as his fingers will let him.

He’s got his trousers back on and is working on his shoes when I finish dressing, too, and prepare to fight tooth and nail to keep him safe. But when I open the door, my father rushes in, gripping tightly onto Daphne’s hand, and says, “You’ve got to get to the deck. We need to board a boat _now_.”

“What—wait, slow down, what are you talking about?”

“The Captain has sent orders for the lifeboats to be loaded.”

“What? Why?” My voice raises in my panic. Simon comes to my side and holds my hand the way my father holds Daphne’s.

“We’ve hit something. The ship is flooding.”

“ _Sinking_? This is an unsinkable ship! The whole point of this ship was that it was big, impenetrable, and _unsinkable—”_

Simon pulls at me. “Baz, come on. We’ve got to go.”

I breathe then nod at him because he’s the only person I trust in the world and so I follow him out the hall, my father and Daphne closely behind us.

* * *

 

“Women and children!” one of the crew calls out. “Women and children first!”

Vera boards though Daphne doesn’t want to let my father go, but he insists. “It’s _me_ ,” he tells her in the most human voice I’ve ever heard from him. “They’re not going to let me drown. Now, go—I’ll be on the first boat for men.”

She’s crying but she rises on her toes and grips the back of his head and kisses him hard. He kisses her once more after that and she separates, turns to me, and kisses both me and Simon on the cheeks. “Stay safe—listen to your father,” she tells me sternly, and is personally escorted to the lifeboat by an officer who assures her, “Don’t worry. Everything will be alright, Mrs. Grimm.”

“You’re lying,” I say to my father because he’s making that face again.

“The Captain is an old friend of mine. I’ll leave when I know he’s safe.”

“I didn’t know you had that kind of loyalty,” I say bitterly.

“It’s not about loyalty. He saved my life when we were boys. I owe him a debt.”

“Because everything’s a business transaction with you, isn’t it?” I spit out.

They begin to lower the lifeboat when Simon interrupts our exchange. He’s confused.

“There’s only 28 on board.” He turns to me and says, “They told us all on our first day that those boats hold 65 passengers each.”

“They must have enough boats then,” I reassure him.

“It’d be best not to push capacity if we don’t have to,” my father says, watching Daphne until she’s out of view.

After thirty minutes of Simon turning wildly to survey the crowd, he says, “I don’t see Micah or Penny—Ebb might still be in the kitchen.”

“Just wait, they’ll have the crew and employees up soon. They’re probably having them inform the other passengers.”

More people shuffle onto the deck as more time passes. Some are panicking—mostly men that don’t want to be separated from their wives or children. Others are like my father, watching with stoicism and calmness like this is a routine procedure and not a real-life emergency.

The _Titanic_ is built to carry 3,547 passengers.

There are only 2,222 total people on board.

I don’t know how many lifeboats there are, but they’re being lowered one by one into the water. Soon, my father is informed that they’re opening the first boat up for men.

“Basil, get on board.”

I pull at Simon, but he tears away from me.

“Simon—”

“Ebb isn’t here!” he shouts. “Or Micah and Penny. I have to look for them. I have to bring them up to the deck—”

But I spot Ebb in the distance and point at her. Her hair is bright in the ship’s lamplights as she leads and directs passengers towards the other boats.

Simon shouts over the people, “Ebb!” He cups his hands around his mouth. “Ebb!”

Ebb shouts back, “Get on, Simon!”

“Where’s Penny and Micah?!”

“They’re on their way up—get on!”

Simon is still hesitant, but he’s letting me drag him towards the lifeboat. They let us on first because I’ve been made a priority like the rest of my family. We fill up the row in the middle, Simon closest to the ship where he can still see Ebb ushering people to safety.

They’re about to lower us down when Micah calls out, crying and shouting over the barricade of officers, “Simon!”

He takes one look at Micah and doesn’t need any other reason to jump off the boat.

“What are you doing!” I try to grip onto his sleeve, but he jerks his arm out of my hand and commands:

“Stay here!”

I stay in the boat, obeying the authority in his voice, and watch him push passed the people desperately trying to take up his seat until he’s gone from view.

My heart beats against my chest as the pulleys lower the boat without him, and it beats harder and harder with each inch we drop down the side and out of view. When we pass up the lower deck, I see people are more terrified down here than above and I feel something is terribly wrong.

So, I don’t think. I act on my instincts and scramble to my feet, stepping on the person sitting in Simon’s seat, and jump at the railing.

“Mr. Pitch!” the crewmember on the lifeboat shouts after me.

I don’t look back, I just struggle to pull myself up as I hang alongside the ship until I have my footing on the edge of the deck and the people of Second Class help me back over the rail and onto the ship.

I barge passed panicking people, all of them wailing for help or for their lost loved ones, and start searching for Simon and Micah.

I’m at a loss. This is the biggest ship ever built and I have no idea where to look or what I’m doing, I just know I have to find Simon because he’s a stupidly brave person and he’ll die searching for Penny.

Luckily, I run into some men I know from Third Class.

“Baz!” one of them bellows, racing toward me. They start pushing me back where I’ve come from.

“You’ve got to get out of here, the lower decks are flooding.”

The ship groans and I realize how much we’re tilting.

“I’m looking for—”

“Mate…” one of them says solemnly. “Those bastards locked the gates to the steerage.” He claps a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, man. Penny’s trapped by the General Room with the others. She’s not going to make it. There’s nothing you can do. We’ve got to get out of here before we can’t either.”

“If Penny’s down there, Simon will die trying to get her out!” I panic and push passed them. “Get on a boat!” I call out over my shoulder and start sprinting down hallways.

I’m descending deep into the ship when I see the landing at the bottom of the stairs is three feet high in water. The General Room is right around the corner.

I hear him.

I splash into the flooded hall and move as quickly as I can through it.

It’s cold—sending a freeze to my bones instantly. It’s painful, but I follow the sound of Simon shouting for Micah to grab something.

I round the corner and the ship’s at such a tilt that the water is higher here, halfway up my thigh.

I see him though.

“Simon!” I shout.

He turns to me, fire extinguisher in his hands. He looks so pissed off and furious at seeing me that I almost shrink back.

“What the bloody fuck are you doing here?!” he shouts. Micah rips the fire extinguisher from his hands and keeps pounding at the lock on the gate separating Penny from us in the hallway.

“I’m not leaving you behind!” I scream back because that’s all I know how to do. Argue and be difficult.

“It’s not working, Si!” Micah yells and Penny’s already waist deep in water because she’s shorter than us.

Simon is terrified and reaches for me. He grabs onto my arm and says desperately, “It’s locked—we can’t get her out this way—”

An idea dawns on me and I say to Penny through the gate, “The dumbwaiter. At the end of the main hallway. You can fit.”

“It’s flooded over there—” she says, hyperventilating but trying to keep herself calm.

“By how much?” I ask.

“I don’t know, the water’s high, I’d have to swim to it—” She lets out a sharp breath and her eyes fill with tears as the plan sinks in. She’s scared, and something about _Penny_ being frightened makes me terrified, too.

She reaches her hands through the gate for Micah and he grabs on, pressing his face between the bars to kiss her.

“If I’m not up in fifteen minutes, you run.” Her voice is shaking because she’s crying now. “You leave. And you live.”

Micah’s trying not to cry now, too.

“Promise me—” she says almost angrily. “Promise me, Micah.”

“I promise,” he croaks out and they kiss once more before she leaves, wading and splashing in her skirts through the water until she’s gone.

Micah isn’t moving, just staring after her, but Simon grabs him by the shoulder and says, “Come on, we still have to get up a floor and find the dumbwaiter.”

He nods, taking deep breaths and glaring like he’s trying to talk himself back up in his head and get a grip.

We rush through the flooded hallway and lift our feet, shoes heavy with ice water, up onto the stairs then clamber messily up the steps once we’re above the waterline. We’re taking the stairs two at a time and every time I get a chance, I look back to make sure Simon is behind me.

Once we’re up a floor, we go out in search for the dumbwaiter, and when we find it, Micah runs ahead of us and lifts up the door of the shoot.

It’s empty, just three ropes in a dark shaft.

I take out my pocket watch and we wait.

And wait.

But each minute that passes, I feel my stomach drop nauseatingly lower.

10 minutes pass by the time on my pocket watch. Simon looks like he’s going to tear his hair out.

11 minutes, and Micah is crying again, eyes shut and praying so fervently to someone under his breath with his hands clasped tightly together.

12 minutes, and the ship groans again. The tilt in the hallway is much more noticeable and I keep looking to Simon who’s staring at me and my watch in heartbreaking fear.

13 minutes...

14 minutes…

15 minutes.

Penny still hasn’t shown.

I make the conscious decision not to tell them it’s passed the 15 mark and let the clock run to 20.

And then to 25.

We’re bracing the walls because the bow of the ship is sinking into the sea.

I have to do it, so I make the call and put the watch away. Simon sees this and closes his eyes, tears streaking down his face as he tries to hold in his whimpers.

Micah’s still praying when I touch his shoulder.

“No—I know she said fifteen, but just another five minutes,” he begs.

I look at them both. Simon’s crying and biting his lip, staring away from us. Micah’s looking at me like I have the power to change all of this.

I shake my head slowly, being the one having to announce Penny’s death.

“It’s already been thirty minutes, Micah… The hall would have flooded by now.”

He wails, pushing his face into his hands and heaving heavy sobs through them. That sets off Simon even more, though I know he’s trying to push away his pain because Simon is good at that, and he looks at the bright side of things, but he’s struggling because there is no bright side to this.

Penny’s gone.

I have to get them out of here, and I’m all but about to carry Micah and Simon over my shoulders if I have to when I see the rope twitch in the hold. It’s moving. Slowly. Barely noticeable, but then the taut line jerks side to side like it’s been yanked.

I rush over and start pulling at the rope, my ability to speak lost in the adrenaline rushing through me. Not even a split second later, Micah and Simon come over and help me.

Three pairs of hands on one rope, we yank and pull down, the sound of the elevator scraping alongside the shaft because of the new angle of the ship. We don’t stop pulling until we can’t reach in anymore—

And Penny pulls herself up the rest of the way, mouth spraying out sea water as she coughs for breath.

Micah cries out, “Thank you,” to a higher power above.

Penny’s soaked head to toe and shivering even though she’s not in the water anymore.

“I was so scared—” she heaves, pulling herself out of the elevator and onto the floor of the hallway. She launches herself into Micah’s arms where he starts peppering kisses all over her wet hair and face.

“Come on, we have to get out of here!” I tell them, and we start running down the Second Class hallways and thrashing up stairways bent at odd angles, Penny struggling to keep up with our pace.

We make it back to the deck where officials have barricaded the people away from the remaining two lifeboats still upright. They look like they’re at full capacity, like one more person’s weight will snap the ropes. One of the officers who I know to be sweet on Ebb, is forcing her onto the boat, her arms tucked at her sides as he hauls her over the side.

Once she’s in, he yells, “Drop it!”

She screams in her anger because I know she wants to wait for us, but she sees us and points, yelling at the officer.

When he looks over in our direction, he spots me immediately.

He comes over and tells me I have to come quickly, but I demand, “Not without my friends.”

Penny is immediately pulled through the barricade first by another crewmember because she’s a woman, but the officer stops Simon and Micah after me.

 

**Simon**

“Mr. Pitch. We just can’t,” the officer says. “Those boats are only meant to hold 65 and we’re already at 69.”

Baz looks like he’s going to hit the man. “You can’t fit three more?!” he shouts.

“What about two?” I ask. If I can get just two more people on there, everything will be alright. “Just two more and then you can lower it.”

The officer stalls, weighing something out in his head like the odds are grave, but he gives me a look of recognition. I nod because I know he understands. He relents and answers, “Alright, two—but quickly, we can’t hold off the crowd much longer.”

I turn away from Baz who looks away crestfallen and devastated. I spot a piece of piping on the ground behind Micah, and move towards it stealthily as if I’m just going to hug him.

But instead I strike down, snatching the pipe, and hide it in front of me. Micah’s staring at me, confusion written all over his face. I fix him a stern look that tells him to stay quiet then turn around to face Baz, hiding the pipe in my hand on my side almost behind me.

“I’m sorry, Baz,” I say. And it’s not my voice because the normal me would never refuse him. The normal me would do anything to make his dreams a reality.

But these aren’t normal circumstances.

And I love him too much.

He looks up right as I swing down, and before he even knows what hit him, he drops, heavy to the ground. I had to. Because I know he would’ve stayed behind with me.

The officer and I pull him up and we all walk to the edge of the lifeboat where Penny’s found a spot on the other side—too far for her to try to jump off.

Good.

I tell Micah to grab onto Baz and he stares at me with wide-eyes.

“I can’t—” he starts, but I tell him:

“If you stay here and break my best friend’s heart, I’ll never forgive you.” I try to smile, but it comes out crooked and all wrong. “She needs you. You two need to start over and make a new life together when you get to New York.”

I yank out my locket from under my shirt and place it around Baz’s head. His head hangs forward, unconscious, and the glinting metal of the locket hangs, too.

“I’ll be okay, Mic,” I tell him. “I’ll figure out another way.”

I look at Penny and she’s got her eyebrows scrunched up at the delay and Baz’s unconscious form.

“Please, take care of them,” I tell him. He leans Baz onto the officer and wraps his arms around me, gripping me with all his strength.

His voice shakes when he says, “You better survive this, you bastard.” I push him off because I know he’ll never let go if I don’t. Then he gets in the boat and the officer and I help load Baz in, too.

When he yells for the men to drop it, Penny realizes what I’ve done and starts shouting for them to stop, but I just try to smile at her, a happy one that says everything is alright, and raise my hand in a slight wave.

I still hear her screaming even as the boat drops out of view.

I remember Baz’s father and ask, “Did Mr. Grimm-Pitch board a boat?”

“Yes. Sometime ago.” The officer claps a hand onto my shoulder and says, “You’re a good friend.”

“We’re going to die, aren’t we,” I say, staring numbly out at the dark horizon.

“You’re a steward,” he says. I nod. “Welcome to the _crew_.”

And I know he means I’m not just an employee anymore. I’m one of the crewmen because we’ve all chosen our fate.

To go down with the ship.

* * *

 

**_2:17 AM, The North Atlantic Ocean_ **

It’s chaos.

People are screaming. Crying. Praying and begging to every god for forgiveness.

Water is claiming the ship as people pull themselves up onto the backs of upturned boats bobbing off the side of the ship.

It seems like more than a thousand people have been left on the ship, not including those of the Third Class, condemned and drowned, locked in the levels already submerged. Everyone’s scrambling to the highest parts of the ship as it heaves up higher into the air and the rest of it sinks lower into the ocean.

People are starting to slide down the deck. The water’s illuminated by the ship’s lighting which hasn’t failed yet. The only thing I have in my favor is one of the lifejackets given to me and the other crew members.

I hear splashes all around us as people fall or jump overboard which, whether they realize or not, is certain death in the freezing ice waters below us. The air is filled with thousands of screams—from fear, from pain and agony. From the people trapped down below, stairways all engulfed and nowhere to go except overboard.

The sound of rushing water filling the caverns of the ship is deafening.

“We have to stay out of the water as long as possible!” The officer says as we climb up to the railing of ship’s stern. We’ve decided to stick together and try our best to survive the circumstances we’ve sentenced ourselves to.

I grip onto the railing because the entire front half of the _Titanic_ is submerged and seemingly dragging the rest of the ship down with it.

The four massive funnels on top of the ship are collapsing, metal snapping and groaning at their bases. One falls and smacks down into the water, onto the swimmers in the water.

They die on impact as the heavy metal dents on the sea.

Everyone floating around the ship is trying to swim out of the way of the remaining funnels, but then the lights cut out—

And it’s blackness.

We all shriek at the loss of vision and I hear more splashes of people falling. I’m hyperventilating, telling myself that as long as I stay above water, as long as I can keep ahold of this end of the ship, I’ll be okay.

I’ll survive and a nearby ship will come rescue me.

I’ll see my friends.

I’ll tell Baz I love him.

I’ll—

“The ship won’t hold much longer,” the officer yells.

There’s no moon, but my eyes adjust barely to the limited light of the stars and ominous horizon.

“What do you mean?” I shout over the terror and splashing below us.

“The hull, it’s full of water. It’s only a matter of time before—”

The entire ship jerks, like it’s been broken in half. The metal is ripping like snapping threads of a seam underneath the surface. The other funnels must be breaking loose, too, because I hear the clash of colliding masses to water. They send wet sprays high in the air. The stern we’re safe on seems to level for a minute, and I think that maybe this is an end to the nightmare.

But the officer knows better and tells me to climb, to hang on the outside of the railing and lock myself onto it and hang above the water instead of standing on the deck. I follow his orders, as insane as they feel, but then the remaining half of the ship we grip onto rises straight up into the air.

I’m hundreds of feet—

Maybe thousands above the water, and I realize we moved to the outside of the stern because the ship is rising and twisting sideways like a mast being raised.

It’s so high that people are hanging off the rails and poles of the deck until their fingers go numb.

They fall to their deaths in sick synchrony.

Then the stern starts to descend into the water, the sea swallowing the mass, thrashing and flooding below us like it’s trying to devour everything about the _Titanic_.

I panic as we sink, scream myself hoarse, when the officer tells me, “Listen! It’s going to try to swallow us up, the current will try to drag you under—keep swimming, keep kicking until you reach the surface!”

We’re falling towards the water, the piercing wails of terror intensify around me.

“Remember—kick!” the officer shouts to me. “Kick—”

And then the freezing water hits me like a thousand needles.

Water fills and burns my nose. All over me is pain—my hands, my joints, my arms, my chest, my face—

_Kick!_

I force my legs to move in the water and keep kicking. It’s a swarm of current around me and pitch black. I don’t know which way is the surface and which way is a watery grave, and I’m running out of oxygen, but I kick and kick until my lifejacket takes hold and shoots me up.

I splutter when I break the surface, painfully coughing up the water in my lungs and gasping onto air between heaves.

I breathe heavy and fast, looking around me, but I don’t see the officer. I’m so cold, my whole body is locking up and I know I have to find something to climb on, but it’s dark and all I can make out is an ocean of thrashing bodies.

As the ice sinks into my bones and the pain overtakes me…

I don’t know how I’m going to survive this.

But I have to try.

So, I lean back and bring my legs up to the surface and kick. I keep kicking until I can’t stand it anymore and look around me.

There’s fewer people scattered about, only those of us with lifejackets are left breathing, and I realize with the sheer amount of people still sitting in the 20 degree water…

There’s nothing I can use to save myself.

My teeth rattle and I grab my fingers under the surface, but that does nothing because there’s no heat.

I want to cry and scream, but no one is anymore.

Because this cold is killing us slowly and there’s nothing that can be done.

* * *

 

It goes silent after that.

My eyes have completely adjusted to the starlight and faint glow of the sky. I don’t dare to count the minutes that go by. I can’t feel anything. My lip still trembles but it’s numb, and I feel my wet hair stiffening with frost.

I’m going to die very soon.

I don’t want my last thoughts to be about death or the icy sea.

I think about Micah and Penny, our first day on the job and so excited to be peeling potatoes and folding linens because how lucky we were to get a free ride to New York where a new life awaited us—

 _Still_ awaits them. I find peace with that, knowing they’ll be rescued and make it to New York and start over. They’ll have kids and maybe even name one Simon and he’ll be a human disaster like his namesake.

I think about Baz being an arsehole. Because he liked me. And he doesn’t like anyone, and what an idiot he is for that. But it’s okay because I’m an idiot in all the other ways and in the end, we could laugh about that.

I think about how happy I’ve been these last nine days, filled with big dreams and stolen kisses, parties and laughing.

I think about Baz being soft with me, and fiercely protective like I’m not worthless, like I’m precious.

I think about how he’ll be alive and maybe this experience will be enough to change his father’s mind, or give Baz the courage to live a life he loves despite it.

Then I think about my mum, and how I felt like she’s always watched over me. How I’ve felt her every day since she died because she promised she would always be there to protect me.

I think that she can finally rest now because I’ll be joining her soon. And one day when Baz, Penny, and Micah are old and grey, I’ll see them again, too.

I let myself think about these things because I’ll never be able to do that again.

But something interrupts my thinking, knocks heavy into my back with a wave. I ignore it at first, but whatever looming thing it is, it’s knocking my head, and I immediately think of my mum. With that comes a flicker of hope and faith.

I turn around in the water, limbs stiff, and see something massive and dark right in front of me. The twists of its edges and the carvings immediately remind me of the headboards from the First Class bedrooms. I grab ahold of it and I can’t feel my hands, but I manage to pull myself up. It takes effort with the bulkiness of my lifejacket, but soon I don’t feel the pressure of the water pressing against my body anymore. I feel wind rustling my back and the hard press of wood against my cheek.

I flop onto my back and stare up at the stars, and think,

_This is a better view to die to._

I don’t know how long I stare up. My vision gets darker as my eyes start to fall closed because I’m so...

Whiteness envelopes me.

It’s silent as I hold on a little longer.

But the last thing I cling onto is Baz’s smile as we lay entwined in his bed on the ship.

Then I let myself fall.

 

 


	6. April 15, 1912, The RMS Titanic has sunken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It had 20 lifeboats that could seat 65 people each._  
>  But couldn’t save the 1 person I cared about more than anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, message for the faint of heart--and sorry for spoilers, but if you just NEED to know immediately, mind my selection on the Warning Tags (or lack thereof) and keep reading.

**_Day 6: April 15, 1912, The RMS Titanic has sunken_ **

****

**Baz**

When I wake up, I’m freezing. I feel a gentle rocking and hear a chorus of clattering around me. Someone coughs and I realize the noise is the chattering of teeth.

I open my eyes and even in the darkness, I have a splitting headache. I reach up to touch the throbbing on my head and feel the sting of a large lump.

“Baz,” Micah says.

I remember the panic, the rising water, the sinking ship, Simon’s voice apologizing to me.

I shoot up so fast I go dizzy and everything tilts. Micah’s hands steady me and I look around at the passengers on the boat. I don’t see him. “Where’s Si—”

I stop, feeling an unfamiliar weight around my neck. It’s his locket. My heart plummets and I’m thrashing around.

“Where is he?!” I try to shout, but it’s so cold my voice comes out broken and hoarse.

He’s trying to calm me down while I swivel in every direction searching for the ship’s light. It’s all darkness around us.

“Simon—” I croak out. “Simon!”

Micah grabs hold of me and pulls me into him, murmuring, “Enough. Enough, Baz. He’s gone… He’s gone.”

I’m still crying out Simon’s name until my eyes sting. Then I’m crying into Micah’s shoulder because I don’t need to be told that he’s done something irreversibly courageous.

That idiot.

That stupidly selfless bloody fucking idiot.

I love him. I loved him so much I jumped out of a boat for him. But my love wasn’t enough because his was greater and he saved all of us even at the cost of his own life.

I sob until I have nothing left in me, and Micah just holds me. Penny leans over and hugs us, too, and the three of us mourn until hours have passed and we’re found by another ship.

* * *

 

The _RMS Carpathia_ brings us aboard in the light of dawn.

Most of the survivors on the lifeboats fill the decks of the _Carpathia_.

Some of the women from our parties in Third Class on the _Titanic_ huddle under blankets in the rising sun. I sit with them, Penny, and Micah, but get up to leave when I see my father walking around the deck in the distance, asking people less than half his rank with a tired face whether they’ve seen his son.

I heard the Captain went down with the ship.

I wonder if my father made any attempt to save him before saving himself.

I hide from him even as we get to New York and are reunited with Ebb, rescued by another nearby ship that heard the _Titanic’s_ distress call. Penny and Micah are telling her the story of how Simon chose to stay behind for us and she starts weeping harder than I’ve ever seen her do.

I sit off to the side, numb, lost, hollow. A man in uniform comes up to me with a list.

He asks me in a kind voice for a name to put down.

_Tyrannus._

“My name?” I repeat.

_Basilton._

“Yes, for the catalogue of survivors.”

_Basil._

“First name?” he asks.

“Baz,” I answer.

“Last name?”

 _Grimm-Pitch_ , I hear in my head. But then I remember Simon Snow and what he said to me.

_‘—to be my own person. You can just chose a different name, and that’s it. No more history.’_

“Snow,” I finally say.

“Baz Snow?” he confirms.

“Yes,” I say. “I know. Stupid name.”

He thanks me and makes off to the next survivor, and I enter New York with my new friends. My new name.

Starting over my new life.

* * *

 

 

**_Day 9: April 26, 1912, New York_ **

 

**Baz**

I’m 21 years old, and my life is a series of numbers and dates.

In March of 1896, Natasha Grimm-Pitch fell ill and died. Because of me.

April 14, 1912, Simon Snow died on the _RMS Titanic_. Saving me.

April 15, 1912, Fiona Pitch was reunited with the love of her life, Ebeneza Petty, and me, her long-lost nephew.

April 17, 1912, I sent a letter to a Mr. Malcolm Grimm-Pitch, reading, _“I’m alive. I hope that’s enough to quell your disappointment in my resignation – Basilton.”_

April 19, 1912, Fiona Pitch received a wire transfer in my name of an impossibly large sum with the memo, _“Your inheritance. For your new start. -MGP”_

The _RMS Titanic_ had a capacity of 3,547.

But it failed to save 1,503 passengers and crew.

It had 20 lifeboats that could seat 65 people each.

But couldn’t save the 1 person I cared about more than anything.

No matter how many numbers I keep track of, or how many dates I record,

I know I’ll never stop loving him.

Penny and Micah won’t either.

We’re in a saloon filled with other survivors from our parties on the ship. We managed to all track each other down in order to process the chaos and death that surrounded us only 12 days ago.

Many of us have changed. Faces that once smiled and laughed show only solemnity. Eyes full of mirth and mischief are now haunted.

I bring my new violin, the one belonging to my grandfather now resting on the seafloor of the Atlantic. This time, no one wants a jig. So, I play something morose, and strangely, it seems to comfort us. Validate the terror of having survived something so horrific.

I’m one of the last drinking when I raise my glass to my lips, empty it, and get up off my stool to reach down for my violin case.

“What’s the difference between a violin and a fiddle?” I hear behind me.

I’ve heard that voice a lot since the sinking. Sometimes I see the person it belongs to when I open my eyes and turn to the other half of my bed. This time is no different.

I stand, my back turned to a ghost. I close my eyes and will the hallucination away.

“Same thing, yeah?” it says again.

I slowly turn around, bringing my head up with a wince to see it clear as day, standing in a saloon where nobody notices it.

My eyes sting and my lips dip down in a frown.

It frowns back.

“Not happy to see me?” it asks.

“You’re not real,” I whisper to myself and clamp my eyes shut. “I’m crazy and you’re not real—you’re not real—you’re not…”

And it’s like I can _feel_ him again. Warm and solid against me, and I think, if this is what being crazy is like, perhaps I don’t mind it.

It’s his chest again, pressing the cold metal of his locket against my skin, and I’m afraid to open my eyes again because I like this dream and dreams are all I have now.

“Arsehole, look at me,” it demands. But I shake my head, forgetting about the other bar patrons as tears slip out of the corner of my eyes and slide down to my chin. “Hey—” It cups my face in its hands.

I squint at it through wet eyelashes, opening my eyes slowly and seeing it’s still here.

I dare whisper to it, “Simon—”

“So, I hear you go by Baz Snow now.” Then it smiles a little, but not bright, not like the Simon I know does. “Should I be jealous you’ve married another sad sap with my same ‘stupid, ridiculous’ last name?”

I just stare at it until he gives me a frustrated glare.

“Snap out of it. You’re not crazy and I’m not dead. I have two missing toes lost to frostbite now to prove it.”

“Simon!” one of the lingering Third Class passengers exclaims from the other side of the bar. My eyes go wide.

“I’m here, darling. Really,” _he_ says—Simon says. _My_ Simon says.

I drop my violin case against the floor with a clatter and throw my arms around him.

“You were dead—” I cry out into his neck, as he wobbles back a little from the force of my embrace, arms pinned to his sides under my own.

“I’m sorry, Baz,” he says, but not like last time. This time it’s full of the promise that he’s not going anywhere. “The boat that found me didn’t get picked up for a while. It took us longer to get to New York on the ship that rescued us.”

I pull back, my eyes wet, but I’m smiling now.

“I thought I’d died,” he says. “All I saw was you and then light. But it was just someone’s flashlight on me. I was moving enough for them to realize I was still hanging on… Everyone around me though...” His smile fades and a haunted, faraway look replaces it.

“Simon…” I say breathlessly because it’s all I can muster, but I see the pain in his eyes. “You look tired, love.” I pull my hand down to his heart and rest it there.

“It’s harder to sleep.” He gives me a half-hearted smile like he’s trying to dismiss all the bad that’s happened to him and focus on the good things. Like he always does. “My dreams… There’s still a lot of water in them.”

I drop my forehead and nuzzle my nose against his, reassuring him, “I’m here now. I’m going to protect you like you protected me, I promise. I promise, Simon Snow.”

He finally holds me back.

* * *

 

He has a night-terror later that evening, when we’re naked, pressed close, and tangled up in each other, safe and warm under my blankets. He wakes in a cold sweat, grasping wildly around for something solid to hold in his nightmares of dying and flailing around in sea water.

He finds me and clings to my chest, and I trail my fingers up and down his back, murmuring words of ‘I love you’ and ‘It’s okay, now. We’re safe. We’re in New York,’ as he cries softly. For a long time, it’s just slow, quiet sobs that shake him in my arms. He presses his face into my neck and holds me tighter.

In the following week, there’s more silence surrounding him. He stares blankly ahead a lot, thoughts still trapped on a sinking ship, but he always holds my hand and I’m relieved I can be the thing that keeps his head above water.

2 months pass and the night-terrors stop. He stirs sometimes, whimpering, but I soothe him in his sleep and he never remembers the dreams the next morning.

We go to the zoo a lot. We stick our hands through the gates to pet the scratchy wool of the sheep, watch the zoo’s three black swans glide across their pond, and the twelve Rhesus monkeys running along branches in their habitat. Simon’s favorite is the zoo’s only polar bear, and he likes to just watch the massive creature stomp around and gnaw at things.

I tell him it eats just like he does. He smiles a little more.

Winter comes and New York is a flurry of snow and frost. Even though his mum loved it, the freeze pulls Simon deeper into himself. One day we go to the lake in Central Park to ice skate, but as soon as his feet touch the frozen surface, he freezes, too. I never bring him back there again and instead decorate the flat we live together in with golds, reds, and deep pine greens for the season. I make it as warm and cozy as possible, and when we’re home, he smiles even more.

Eventually his laughs and grins return, easy and big on his face again. He jokes with us—with Ebb and Fiona, now married, and Penny and Micah who are now engaged.

And one day, I wake up to him sitting up in bed next to me reading, and when he smiles down at me, I see in his eyes that he’s finally come back.

* * *

 

 

**_May 1, 1916, 4 years later_ **

****

**Baz**

I’m 25 years old and my life has been a series of numbers and dates.

But the only date I’ll ever keep track of after this Sunday is the 7th of May.

Because in 1 hour, I’m going to pick up my suit from the tailor.

In 1 week, I will stand beside a man and recite my vows.

Within 2-4 months, we will probably have our first married squabble over something ridiculous, and an hour later, we’ll kiss and laugh about it.

I will live the remainder of my days in absolute, joyous contentment.

Because I boarded the Ship of Dreams.

I fell in love with one of its stewards, dressed in white and grinning at me with excitement of his new adventure.

Because that steward sacrificed himself to keep me and his family safe.

And survived the sinking of the _RMS Titanic_.

Because I’ve known Simon Snow for approximately 1,487 days.

And have been in love with him for 1,486 of them.

And because I’ll continue to be hopelessly in love with him—

for thousands upon thousands more.

 

_-End-_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really wanted to see this happen and I got so much support and encouragement on the carryonebenza blog that I HAD to at least try my hand at a Titanic AU. I hope you all enjoyed it and if you have the time to share the love, I'd love a "Hell Yeah!” or “You MONSTER" in the comments if I freaked you out/made your heart hurt in all the suspense and angst LOL
> 
> Until next time, lovelies! Take care!<3


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